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THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS 
Edited by }OHN H. KERR, D. D. 



THE TEACHING OF JESUS 

CONCERNING 

HIS OWN MISSION 



Frank Hugh Foster, ph. d., d. d. 



THE TEACHING OF JESUS 



CONCERNING 



HIS OWN MISSION 



By 

Frank Hugh Foster, Ph. D., D.D. 



AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY 

150 NASSAU STREET 



NEW YORK 









TH&LllilKAaVOF 
CONGRESS. 

Two Cepiet Received 

SEP 15 'W3 

Copyright Entry 

:l>S5 jfc. KXc No 

COPY B. 



Copyright, igo^ y by 
AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY 



TO THE MEMORY OF 

JOSEPH HENRY THAYER 

GRAMMARIAN, LEXICOGRAPHER 

AND TRANSLATOR 

OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 

PAINSTAKING TEACHER 

ACCURATE AND LEARNED EXEGETE 

KNIGHT 

WITHOUT FEAR AND WITHOUT REPROACH 

FAITHFUL FRIEND 



PREFACE 

IT is the object of this book to present to the 
general public, without controversy and in a 
plain manner, the results of the best scholarship 
respecting its theme. Learned lumber of every 
kind has been rigorously excluded. Hence there 
are no references to books, and no minute discus- 
sions. But such discussions have not been unex- 
amined by the writer; and at many a point the 
argument has taken silent notice of them. The 
style has been condensed as much as seemed con- 
sistent with intelligibility. The hope is that Sun- 
day School classes and private readers may here 
easily find what they want, and be both stimulated 
to further study and helped religiously. 



CONTENTS 

I. The Method of the Study. . i 

II. The Preparation 16 

III. The Fundamental Utterances 

of Jesus 25 

IV. The Lost World and the 

Kingdom of Heaven. ... 32 
V. The Salvation of Healing. . 48 
VI. The Salvation of Knowledge. 59 
VII. The Salvation of Repentance 

and the New Life. ... 72 
VIII. The Salvation of Redemption 

and Forgiveness 84 

IX. Salvation at the Last Judg- 
ment. 118 

X. Summary .122 

Indices. , 127 



CHAPTER I 

The Method of the Study 

rHE advantages of the Christian 
student are sometimes his disad- 
vantages. He lives in the Chris- 
tian Church, which has been studying 
truth for two thousand years. All its 
great scholars and divines are his teachers 
and fathers. He is naturally inclined, 
when he wishes to know why Jesus 
Christ came into the world, to ask these 
teachers. He can scarcely go wrong, he 
thinks, if he takes the result of all the 
ages of Christian study for the true an- 
swer of his questions. The Church must 
A 1 



2 His Own Mission 

know, and the answer of her scholars is 
the answer of the Church. 

Direct Knowledge Best 

But this may not be wholly so. When 
one goes into a cathedral, the light that 
comes pouring through its windows is 
the light of the sun ; but it is variously 
colored and quite different from the white 
light outside. Every window has its 
beautiful pictures wrought in colored 
glass, and the light is modified in a differ- 
ent way by every bit through which it 
passes. If one wishes to know what the 
sunlight is in all its purity and brilliancy, 
he must go out of the cathedral and stand 
in the full white light of the sun itself. 
So every teacher in the Church, taking 
the truth from the revelation made by 
Jesus, has colored it more or less, as he 
has transmitted it through his own per- 
sonality. Another will not get from him 
just what he received from Jesus. To 
know the pure truth of Jesus, it is, there- 



The Method of the Study 3 

fore, necessary to step outside of the 
Church, and stand in the full light which 
shines from the Sun of Righteousness 
himself. The Church gives us the 
knowledge that there is light, she points 
us to the Sun, she has many a word of 
helpful interpretation to give. These are 
advantages. But if they take the place of 
direct knowledge of Jesus for one's self, 
they become disadvantages. A more 
glorious understanding of the mission 
of Jesus in the world, of every truth he 
has had to reveal, and of every deed 
he has had to perform, will be gained if, 
for a time, not his disciples but himself 
be heard. 

Jesus' Own Words 

We must go, then, to the Gospels for 
our answer to the great question of this 
book : Why did Jesus Christ come into the 
World ? There he tells us himself : there 
we stand in the full sunlight of truth. 
Some have gone even further, and have 



4 His Own Mission 

said that we must restrict ourselves to his 
own recorded words. The disciples, and 
even the inspired Apostles, were men. 
They were " colored," and can transmit 
only colored light. If we want truly 
the pure sunlight, the light of unmodified 
truth, we must hear not even what the 
Apostles say about Jesus' teaching, but 
the exact words of Jesus only. This is 
his teaching uncolored by any transmit- 
ting agency whatever. This alone gives 
the exact truth. 

If this further distinction is correct, 
and we may hope to obtain knowledge 
of Jesus' teachings from his own words 
exclusively, then certain things must be 
true about those words. They must be 
reported with a great degree of fulness 
and accuracy. We must be able to know, 
first, that they are Jesus' exact words, and, 
second, precisely what they mean, with- 
out the help of anything except com- 
parison of one teaching with another. 
Enigmatical phrases, scattered hints on 



The Method of the Study 5 

great themes, brief and inadequate re- 
ports of long and profound discourses, 
will avail us little. If the Apostles cor- 
rectly understood him, we must be able 
to justify them from his words alone : if 
they, prechance, misunderstood him, or 
only partially understood, that must be 
equally evident from the same words. 
Two things we must have, Fulness, and 
Precision. 

Dependence on the Apostles 

Now, evidently, neither of these things 
do we actually have. The reports, first, 
are not full, for in the fullest examples, as 
in the Sermon on the Mount, or in the 
Last Discourse, we may read in a few 
moments what must have taken a long 
time to deliver. We have in these cases 
little more than the heads of the dis- 
course, and in most cases only a glimpse of 
the main substance of a discourse. The 
parables may be complete, each in itself ; 
but there were many more parables. 



6 His Own Mission 

Often we have mere hints, and isolated 
phrases to go on, as in that most important 
text for our present study, Matt. xx. 28, 
where the word " ransom >J starts new 
questions rather than answers old. If 
the gospels contained nothing but Jesus 5 
words, how brief, how inadequate as a 
report of the teachings of such a man the 
one hundred and twenty pages which 
they fill out in a quarto Bible ! No, ful- 
ness is not to be found in the report of 
Jesus' words ! 

Neither is verbal precision. When 
we compare parallel passages in the dif- 
ferent gospels, how many variations we 
find ! Where is the verbatim report which 
the accurate student demands ? Even 
John's reports are so evidently in the 
peculiar style determined by his own 
marked individuality, 1 that no stress can 
be laid upon their universal verbal pre- 

1 Compare the gospel and the Epistles, where he 
was not controled by any purpose of reporting. 
The two styles are the same. Then compare the 



The Method of the Study 7 

cision, considered as reports. Even the 
professed words of Jesus are therefore 
colored by the writer's understanding 
and memory of them. In the gospels 
you are still in the cathedral and see the 
light through the medium of other men. 

Jesus, the Jesus of the Gospels 

We must, therefore, pause in our 
search for the true light at that light 
which shines from the pages of the en- 
tire four gospels as we now have them. 
The Jesus whom we know is the Jesus 
whom the evangelists portray. We can- 
not know him apart from their concep- 
tion of him, for they have given not 
him, but their conception of him. If the 
two are different and contradictory, then 
we can never know Jesus. We must 
go back to the words of Jesus, if we are 
to gain the best knowledge of his mission 
into the world ; but these are not his 

style of the first three gospels. It is markedly 
different. 



8 His Own Mission 

words in distinction from their report in the 
gospels and the evangelists' understand- 
ing of them, but his words as reported to 
us. Efforts which separate between 
these things are foredoomed to failure in 
attaining the teaching of Jesus. They 
may gratify the ingenuity of men, but 
they can never commend themselves to 
any but those who make them. To 
success it is essential to assume, as this 
present study will frankly do, the equal 
substantial value of all the evangelical rep- 
resentations of Jesus' teachings, whether 
they be report, or comment, or applica- 
tion, or implication. And thus the whole 
text of all the gospels will be employed 
as the necessary and indispensable means 
of interpreting the reproduction found 
in them of the Saviour's words. 

The Fourth Gospel 

But is not an exception to be made in 
reference to the Fourth Gospel ? Is not 
its individuality too marked to allow us 



The Method of the Study 9 

to take it as giving even a fairly objective 
and reliable view of Jesus' teaching ? Is 
not the Jesus it presents distinctly differ- 
ent from that Jesus which we find on 
the pages of the first three gospels ? And 
must not any discussion that pretends to 
have value distinguish between the two 
forms of doctrine, and give the prefer- 
ence to that of the simple and primitive 
three ? 

The point of view of the two styles of 
presenting Jesus is enough different to 
justify a separation in the treatment of 
every theme between its synoptic, or 
earlier form, and its Johannine. Advan- 
tage will often be found to flow from 
this separation. But when all is said, the 
picture given of Christ in the first three, 
and in the fourth gospel is substantially 
the same. They can be rendered incon- 
sistent only by removing, by falsely so- 
called " critical " processes, elements 
from the three earlier gospels which are 
found there and belong where they are 



io His Own Mission 

found. If they be separated for argu- 
ment's sake, the argument finally proves 
their agreement; and to assume that 
agreement is to find it constantly con- 
firmed. The Christ of the four gospels 
is a single and consistent personality, and 
his teaching is better understood by con- 
sidering them all than by divorcing them. 

Environment 

A further principle has an important 
application to this study. Everything 
pertaining to this world is known fully 
only as its environment is known. Ani- 
mal, plant, a race, an institution, an idea, 
— none of these can be known by any 
process which isolates them. This is 
now accepted and employed as a prin- 
ciple in the study of almost every impor- 
tant theme. It will be found to have a 
direct, but possibly an unexpected appli- 
cation to our present subject. 

The teachings of Jesus must be under- 
stood by a consideration of his environ- 



The Method of the Study 1 1 

ment, and by the environment of the 
records which have transmitted them to 
us. It seems scarcely worth remarking 
that he could be understood by the peo- 
ple only as he spoke their language. 
But their language was not a mere list of 
words. Words themselves mean this or 
that to the hearer according to the stock 
of ideas which he possesses, by which 
they are interpreted. What does the 
word " wealth ' mean to the widow 
whose entire living is two mites, and what 
to the proud rulers of the Jews ? What 
does " salvation " mean to the sinner who 
feels his unutterable guilt, and the Phari- 
see who has been taught from the begin- 
ning that he is a favorite of heaven and 
supposes that he has " kept all the com- 
mandments from his youth ? " Hence 
what Jesus' hearers were, what they had 
been taught and believed, their history and 
institutions and theology and forms of 
common life, all entered into their prepa- 
ration for his teaching and thus deter- 



12 His Own Mission 

mined their understanding of it. And 
thus even his meaning was determined, 
for he would not, as a wise and sincere 
teacher, speak so as to be inevitably mis- 
understood, and he could gain no credit 
with us if he did. Thus the whole of 
current Judaism is to be taken into our 
view as we seek to determine what Jesus 
meant by this or that word. And many 
another element of environment there 
is also. 

The Gospels have an Environment 

This is often forgotten, but it exists, 
and by it the gospels must be interpreted. 

If we compare the dates at which the 
different books of the New Testament 
were written, we discover that the gospels 
are not the earliest. This place belongs 
to the Epistles of Paul. The interval of 
time between epistle and gospel ranges 
in different cases between the extremes 
of fifteen and forty years. In the mean- 
time the Epistles of Paul had been widely 



The Method of the Study 13 

circulated. 2 We do not know how 
widely, but we know that they went from 
Rome on the west to the heart of Asia 
Minor on the east, and from Philippi on 
the north to Colossae on the south, and 
that they circulated from church to 
church. 3 It cannot be supposed that 
the evangelists were ignorant of their 
contents. They had already themselves 
learned much from Paul. 4 They wrote 
for a Church which already had the epis- 
tles, and they knew that the gospel ac- 
cording to Paul would powerfully affect 
the understanding of their own gospel. 
Hence they must have written with 
an unconscious if not a conscious — 
better, with both conscious and often 
unconscious reference to him. They 
were in his environment, and he is essen- 
tial to the understanding of them. Had 
they not agreed with him, they must 

2 Comp. 2 Pet. iii. 15, 16. 

3 Col. iv. 16. 

4 Gal. ii. I— 21. 



14 His Own Mission 

have openly opposed him, as he did Peter 
while there was still matter of controversy 
between them. 5 The fact that they do 
not oppose him argues powerfully for 
their conscious agreement with him. 
Continued study of both will confirm 
their agreement. We must therefore 
bring Paul in to interpret Matthew and 
John, as the early church did, and as the 
church has ever since done. We are 
thus but recognizing the principle that a 
form — a form of doctrine as well as any- 
thing else — is known by its environment. 

Doctrinal Unity of the New Testament 

We thus arrive, by a somewhat new 
path, at an old principle, upon which this 
book will be based, the unity of the New 
Testament. We cannot separate between 
a " theology of Jesus " and a " theology 
of Paul," the former of which should 
teach, for example, free forgiveness 
without an atonement, the latter the ne- 

5 Gal. ii. ii. 



The Method of the Study 1 5 

cessity of an atonement. At least, we 
cannot do this before examination. If 
we should find clear proof of such dif- 
ferences, we should have to accept them ; 
but to infer them from the fact that one 
is silent, or indefinite as to some doctrine 
which the other teaches — that would be 
to forget the principle of environment. 
When two explanations of passages can 
be given, one of which makes them agree 
and the other makes them differ, the 
former is to be preferred. Such is the 
supposition which is demanded by a 
general survey of the relations of gos- 
pels and epistles, and such the " working 
theory " upon which we shall proceed, 
till full acquaintance with the facts has 
either refuted the theory or confirmed 
it beyond the possibility of further rea- 
sonable questioning. 



CHAPTER II 

The Preparation 

TJyT'HEN Jesus appeared, it was, as 
^yr already said, in the environment 
of the Jewish nation. He was 
born a Jew. The nation of which he 
thus became a member had long cher- 
ished hopes of a Messiah who should 
fulfill the brilliant prophecies about him 
with which the Old Testament was 
crowded. They knew where he was to 
be born, 1 and that he was to be of the 
lineage of David. They knew he was 
to be a king; 2 but they misconceived the 

1 Matt. ii. 5. 

2 Matt. xxii. 42. 

16 



The Preparation 17 

nature of his kingdom, fixing their eyes 
on deliverance from the yoke of Rome 
and the establishment of an earthly king- 
dom, 3 and were thereby rendered unpre- 
pared for his spiritual doctrine. They 
even had vague ideas as to his eternity, as 
if he could not die. 4 They had failed to 
get the meaning of the most significant 
passages of their ancient Bible, and had 
hence no true knowledge of him, or of 
his mission, and had to be instructed and 
corrected, again and again, at every vital 
point. Of a suffering Messiah, despite 
the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, they 
seem to have had no knowledge what- 
ever. And thus their view of him only 
serves to teach us what he was not, except 
as it serves to render plainer some of his 
own expressions. 

John the Baptist 

There was one man in Israel who knew 
3 Acts i. 6. 
4 Jn- xii. 34. 
B 



18 His Own Mission 

what the others did not. This was John, 
the child born of prophecy and miracle, 
who was trained for his work in the des- 
ert, and came "preaching the baptism of 
repentance unto the remission of sins." 5 
He shared the Messianic hopes of his 
people, but knew himself to stand in a 
special relation to the Messiah. He was 
the Voice sent to make ready for the 
coming of the expected one. 6 As the 
Evangelist John expresses it, he was sent 
" for witness, that he might bear witness 
of the light, that all might believe through 
him." 7 And he knew the holy sign, 
the descending Spirit, by which the 
Messiah was both to be declared and 
empowered. 8 

John, too, recognized the kingship of 
the Messiah, and proclaimed the near ap- 

5 Mk. i. 4. 

6 Jn. i. 23. Comp. Matt. iii. 3; Mk. i. 3; 
Lk. i. 17. 

7 Jn. i. 7. Comp. vs. 31. 

8 J n -i- 33- 



The Preparation 19 

proach of the kingdom. 9 But his idea 
of the kingdom was a spiritual idea, for 
its founding was to be the chief work of 
that greater one who should come after 
him and should " baptize in the Spirit." IO 
This view at once shattered the hopes of 
earthly brilliancy which the Jews at large 
entertained for the kingdom of the Mes- 
siah. Such a spiritual mission, among 
a people sunk so low in vice as Israel 
was, 11 must be attended with judgment, 12 
which should have eternal consequences. 
Thus the Messiah was elevated to the 
rank of a divine personage, for only God 
can pronounce eternal judgment. John's 
Messiah was, therefore, a King, and an 
eternal King, but he was more. 

The Lamb of God 
He was more ; for he was the suffering 

9 Matt. iii. 2. 

10 Matt. iii. 11. 

11 Lk. iii. 7, etc. 

12 Lk. iii. 17 ; Matt. iii. 12. 



20 His Own Mission 

Redeemer. When Jesus came to be 
baptized of John in Jordan, he was 
pointed out by John to those who stood 
about as " the Lamb of God that taketh 
away the sin of the world." I3 

The meaning of this slight and brief 
reference to the work of Jesus might 
well be regarded as too uncertain to af- 
ford the basis for any doctrine of religion 
but for the place and circumstances in 
which it stands. These are its environ- 
ment, and determine its meaning. That 
word "lamb " had as definite a reference 
to the ear of a Jew trained in the Scrip- 
tures, as " light " has to the student of 
the Apostle John. In one place in the 
Old Testament only is the sacrificial vic- 
tim called a "lamb/' and that is in the 
great chapter of Isaiah upon the Servant of 
Jehovah. 14 Of him it is said that he was 
"as a lamb that is led to the slaughter/' 
The Old Testament here- reaches the 

13 J*, i. 29, 36. 

14 Is. liii. 7. 



The Preparation 21 

summit of its doctrine of the Messiah. 
The way of the crown becomes here the 
way of the cross. It is with this picture 
that the Baptist identifies Jesus, and he 
thereby teaches that Jesus' work culmi- 
nated in his sacrifice, by which he was 
"wounded for our transgressions/' and 
Jehovah " laid on him the iniquity of us 
all." 1S If to some, as generally it has to 
the Jews both ancient and modern, that 
prophecy has seemed to refer to the per- 
sonified people of Israel, John understood 
it of an individual person, and that per- 
son was Jesus. 

This distinct interpretation, given by 
his acknowledged forerunner, 16 forms a 
large element of the environment of 
Jesus' teaching as to himself. He was 
thus introduced to his own disciples, 17 
and to the public who listened to the 

5 Is. liii. 5, 6. 

16 Matt. xi. 14. 

17 Jn. i. 35>3 6 - 



22 His Own Mission 

Baptist. 18 As they reflected on John and 
his connection with Jesus, these remark- 
able words must have largely influenced 
their understanding of what Jesus said. 
And it is not strange that, years after, 
when John came to write his gospel, he 
put this text at the beginning, as a kind 
of motto for all the christological teach- 
ing of his story. And in this environ- 
ment, it is his distinct purpose that Jesus' 
first recorded utterance as to himself, 19 
— " the Son of Man must be lifted up " — 
otherwise enigmatical, shall stand and 
find interpretation. 

Saviour from Sin 

There was still another element in the 
environment in which Jesus' teaching 
was set, a little group of men and women 
in the midst of the Jewish public who 
had all been the recipients of special rev- 

18 Jn. i. 29. 
x 9 Jn. iii. 14. 



The Preparation 23 

elation in regard to Jesus, — Joseph and 
Mary, Elizabeth and Zacchaeus, Simeon 
and Anna. To them Jesus was no mere 
child of ordinary birth, but " conceived 
by the Holy Ghost." 20 His name was 
no ordinary name, given by caprice or 
prescribed by family tradition, but be- 
stowed by an angel 2I expressly to desig- 
nate his mission as the Saviour of his 
people "from their sins." They ex- 
pected for him a most glorious career as 
King, 22 but waited humbly for the reve- 
lation of fact as to its nature and course. 23 
With many a misunderstanding of de- 
tail, 24 this little group looked confidently 
for salvation by the Son of divine mercy, 
and when John called him Lamb of God, 
that became the more definite expression 

20 Lk. i. 35. 

21 Matt. i. 21. 

22 Lk. ii. 34, 38. 

23 Lk. ii. 19. 

24 Matt. xii. 46, 



24 His Own Mission 

of their hope. 25 The work of Jesus 
found its true meaning to them in salva- 
tion. 

25 This is implied in the use of Is. liii. made in 
Matt. viii. 17. This chapter had come to be cur- 
rently applied to Jesus. 



CHAPTER III 

Summaries of His Mission by Jesus 
Himself 

71 >^OST men do not know what 
2 fJi they are in the world for. They 
find their work with difficulty 
and pursue it with doubt. They are sat- 
isfied with having an occupation. It is 
only by an act of faith, of which few are 
capable, that their lives assume to them 
the character of a mission, and they feel 
that they are sent by God himself to do 
what they do do. 

In this doubt and perplexity Jesus had 
no share. As a child of twelve he knew 

25 



26 His Own Mission 

what was "his Father's business/' 1 In 
any deep-going discussion of his life, such 
words as these, which mark him out as 
above the ordinary consciousness and lot 
of men, must be placed at the begin- 
ning, — such words, repeated many times 
in various form, as these : 

" I came forth and am come from 
God ; for neither have I come of my- 
self, but he sent me." 2 

He was, first of all, sent. 

His Mission learned from his Deeds 

We might employ either of two ways 
to discover what Jesus' mission was, for 
we might look at what he did, or at what 
he said about it himself. If we pursued 
the former course, we should follow the 
main events of his life as related in the 
gospels. We should find him an obscure 
youth in a provincial village, little unlike 
other youths, but still giving his mother 

1 Lk. ii. 49. 

2 Jn. viii. 42. 



Summaries by Jesus Himself 27 

cause to "ponder things in her heart." 3 
At about the age of thirty years, he 
emerges from his obscurity, and engages 
in various labors. He becomes at once a 
teacher, whose subject matter is the truth 
about God and men. Patiently and un- 
weariedly, in the midst of all sorts of ob- 
stacles and rebuffs, he continues to in- 
struct a people that prove themselves 
slow of ears and still slower of heart. In 
his solitary chamber, sitting on Jacob's 
well, by the wayside, in the markets and 
synagogues, in private houses and in the 
Temple itself, he proclaims everywhere 
the gospel of the kingdom, and calls men 
to God. 

But, as he teaches, he finds other work 
waiting for him. The ignorance and sin 
of men have called for instruction. But 
there are other needs of men. He finds 
them miserable, suffering, and in want. 
These needs appeal to him, for they 
spring from that great fundamental, spirit- 

3 Lk. ii. 19. 



28 His Own Mission 

ual need and illustrate it. He heals the 
sick, cleanses the lepers, casts out devils, 
feeds the multitudes, rescues his endan- 
gered disciples. One kind of work is as 
natural to him as the other. Both are 
called out by the immediate need. He 
assumes also the role of Messiah, whom 
the Jews had long expected. He comes 
to set up a kingdom, but it is a kingdom 
of the truth. Membership in it means the 
assumption of a new spiritual relation, for 
he refuses to be made king of the multi- 
tudes when they come to set up an earthly 
sovereignty. When men repent and 
exercise faith in him, he pronounces for- 
giveness of their sins. He creates in his 
followers a new spiritual life, which he 
designates as eternal. Thus his days pass 
in the humble but fundamental work of 
enlightening men's minds, doing them 
practical good, awakening their spiritual 
activities, and conferring on them spirit- 
ual gifts. 

Gradually about this peaceful work and 



Summaries by Jesus Himself 29 

over the scene of so much goodness and 
helpfulness there spreads a dark shadow. 
To do good to the suffering is often to 
oppose and transgress the legal observ- 
ances of a formal Judaism. Hatred be- 
gins to rise against him as a reformer and 
a revolutionist. Jesus begins to speak of 
a violent death as the end of his career. 
But he moves composedly on, makes no 
change in his methods, comes at last to 
the fatal hour, delivers himself into the 
hands of the awestruck mob who have 
come out against him but cannot execute 
their purpose, and on the cross surrenders 
his life by his own act. And then he 
emerges from the tomb to commission 
his disciples for a world wide work, and 
to ascend to heaven. He has added death 
and resurrection to the rest. In these 
main things is comprised what he did. 

Jesus' Mission expressed by Himself 

But Jesus has himself told us what his 
mission in the world was. He has not 



30 His Own Mission 

expressed it in a single verse of the New 
Testament, but at several different times, 
under different circumstances, he told 
why he had come. None of these ex- 
pressions is a complete expression of his 
full mission ; but, taken together, the 
principal of them contain all that he said, 
and, we may presume, all there was to 
say. Seven of them may be selected, as 
embracing all the rest and briefly con- 
taining all his teaching as to his work. 
They follow here, without explanation, 
in the order of their logical relations. 
The remainder of this volume will be 
taken up with their careful discussion in 
order. They are these : 

i. " The Son of Man came to seek and to 
save that which was lost" Lk. xix. 10. 

2. " The works which the Father hath 
given me to accomplish" Jn. v. 36. 

3. " I am come a light into the World, that 
whosoever believeth on me may not abide in 
the darkness" Jn. xii. 46. 



Summaries by Jesus Himself 31 

4. "I am come to call sinners to repent- 
ance'' " Lk. v. 32. 

5. "I came that they may have life." 
Jn. x. 10. 

6. " The Son of Man came to minister and 
to give his life a ransom for many." Matt. 
xx. 28. 

7. " For judgment came I into this World." 
Jn. ix. 39. 

Let us now study these expressions, 
one after another. 



CHAPTER IV 

The Lost World and the Kingdom 
of Heaven 

" The Son of Man came to seek and to save that 
which was lost." Lk. xix. 10. 

rHIS saying of Jesus was uttered 
on a special occasion and in refer- 
ence to a single man, lost to the 
commonwealth of Israel as well as to God, 
Zacchaeus. But here, as in so many 
cases, the individual case led to the utter- 
ance of the larger underlying truth. He 
expressed here what the world was — lost ; 
and hence what he came for, — to seek 
and save the lost. Here is a whole theory 
32 



The Lost World 33 

of the world, and a whole theory of sal- 
vation involved. 

Lost ! What this word meant to a Jew 
will be understood when we think of the 
source from which it is taken. The New 
Testament is full of the language of the 
Old, and its thought vibrates with the 
thought of the Old. The word " lost " 
is one example of this among many others. 
Jehovah was the " shepherd " " of Israel, 
who "restored the soul." And Jesus 
was the " good shepherd." 2 He looked 
upon the people to whom he came as a 
shepherd would, and he found them stray- 
ing from the fold, "lost sheep of the 
house of Israel." 3 In the tenderness of 
his loving heart, his first and predominant 
feeling was that of pity. He had " com- 
passion for them because they were dis- 
tressed and scattered, as sheep not having 

1 Ps. xxiii. 1. 
2 Jn. x. 11. 
3 Matt. x. 6. 
C 



34 His Own Mission 

a shepherd." 4 This note of tender re- 
gret over sin never dies completely away 
in the New Testament. Sin is itself gen- 
erally designated by a word 5 which orig- 
inally means a "missing of the mark." 
In the text set at the head of this chapter, 
it was because Zacchaeus had separated 
himself from his people and gone into 
the ways of the Gentiles, whose business 
he was doing as a Roman tax gatherer, 
that he was called "lost." Astray, lost 
from the way of safety and protection, 
deprived of pasture and in danger of 
wild beasts, ignorant, foolish, silly, — the 
lost sheep was sought by the shepherd 
with painful solicitude till it was found. 6 
Like such sheep, men are "lost." 

But this was not all the meaning of the 
word. Sin was found everywhere, and 
it was no mere negative failure to find 
and do the good. It was a positive hos- 

4 Matt. ix. 36. Comp. Ezek. xxxiv. 5. 

5 afJUOLpTLCL. 

6 Ps. xxiii. 3. Lk. xv. 4. 



The Lost World 35 

tility to the known good. Sin takes on 
a deeper meaning as the gospels describe 
sinners. The "heart" 7 is wrong. The 
world is filled with violence and evil. 
Men obey their own lusts and forget 
the law of God. They even distort and 
pervert the law itself. 8 Where special 
sanctity might be expected, among the 
chosen leaders of the people, there 
wickedness reaches its height. 9 Com- 
passion yields to righteous anger when 
the Scribes and Pharisees are mentioned, 
men who had opportunity to know their 
duty and to do it, but who chose the 
evil. But anger yields to compassion 
when the young man comes asking 
what he shall do to inherit eternal life, 
and in frank simplicity declares that he 
has kept the commandments from his 
youth. "Looking upon him" in his 
young eagerness for something greater 
7Mk. vii. 21. 

8 Matt. xv. 6. 

9 Matt. chap, xxiii. 



36 His Own Mission 

and purer than he had, Jesus "loved 
him." 10 But he put the probing test, 
" Go, sell whatsoever thou hast ; " and he 
closed that story when he said, " How 
hardly shall they that have riches enter 
into the kingdom of God ! " The young 
man "saw and approved the better, but 
followed the worse." He "missed," 
but he did not want now to avoid the 
missing. He was "lost" in a deeper 
sense than that. 

These are the forms in which the first 
three gospels present the matter after 
their practical and concrete fashion. 
But the picture of the world which we 
find when we pass to the more reflective 
and philosophical fourth gospel, is not 
essentially different. The "world" is 
now viewed in the mass. It has a like 
character and destiny. God loves it, 
and gives his Son that it may not perish 
but have life— be saved — through him. 11 

10 Mk. x. 21. 

11 Jn. iii. 16. 



The Lost World 37 

The world is "lost," therefore, because 
it is not " saved." " Men love darkness 
rather than light because their works are 
evil ; " I2 and they are already in a state of 
judgment (condemnation), 13 out of which 
they can come, if they will believe, but in 
which remaining, as they will do if they 
do not exercise themselves to escape, they 
have the " wrath of God abiding on 
them." I4 Darkness, sin, judgment, death 
— the most terrible words in the Bible 
— these are the words which describe the 
world as it is before Jesus brings his sal- 
vation into it. And more ! This world 
is under a Prince of its own/ 5 against 
whom Jesus was set in opposition, 16 and 
whom he "judged," 17 who was the 
" Father " of the wicked Jews, and was 

12 Jn. iii. 19. 
J 3 Jn. iii. 18. 

14 Jn. iii. 36. 

15 Jn. xii. 31. 

16 Jn. xiv. 30. 

17 Jn. xii. 31. 



38 His Own Mission 

the Devil. 18 Thus it is in itself a king- 
dom of evil organized against the king- 
dom of God, fortified and established in 
itself. The apostle who wrote the gos- 
pel, expressing in his own language the 
thought he had derived from his Master, 
said, " The whole world lieth in the evil 
one" [A. V. "in wickedness/'] 19 It 
was not strange that such a world " re- 
ceived him not." 2 ° 

Thus the world is now estranged from 
God and dominated by evil. Now ! 
But it has a future to which the word 
"lost" is also applied. In comparison 
with the fate of lost men in the world to 
come, the evils of this world were noth- 
ing. Men were not to be "afraid of 
them that kill the body," but it was wis- 
dom to " fear him who is able to destroy 
both soul and body in hell." 21 This is 

18 Jn. viii. 41, 44. 
x 9 1 Jn. v. 19. 

20 Jn. i. 11. 

21 Matt, x. 28. 



The Lost World 39 

the place of " fire prepared for the devil 
and his angels/' 22 an "eternal fire/' 23 
"unquenchable/' 24 and "where their 
worm dieth not/' 25 and anguish is their 
lot. 26 As the Fourth Gospel prefers to 
phrase it, it is the realm of " death/' 2? in 
which a man is till he believes in God, 
and in which he remains, if he fails to 
exercise this faith. 28 " Eternal life " is 
the knowledge of God/ 9 and eternal 
death is that state of final estrangement 
from God which is the highest misery of 
the soul, for which any expressions of 
pain and loss are but the feeble sugges- 
tions of what is, after all, beyond human 
conception. 

22 Matt, xxv, 41, 

23 Comp. Matt, xviii. 8. 
2 < Mk. ix. 43, 48. 

2 s Ibid. vs. 48. 

26 Matt. viii. 12. 

27 Jn. v. 24. 

28 Comp. 1 Jn. iii. 14. 

29 Jn. xviu 3. 



40 His Own Mission 

The modern church tends to empha- 
size the present life and to neglect the fu- 
ture. The mediaeval magnified the future 
and despised the present. But Jesus, 
while placing the eternal life above the 
fleeting period of human existence, and 
the spiritual interests far above the ma- 
terial, never failed to insist on the unity 
of both lives and the importance of daily 
doing our duty in our present estate. 
"Life," whether now or bye-and-bye, 
the knowledge and the love of God, is 
the great thing ; and, once gained, it is 
eternal in consequence of its essential 
nature. 

This lost world — lost now and lost for- 
ever — constituted the object of Jesus' 
coming. He came to save it. 3 ° He 
came preaching the " kingdom of 
heaven " 3I as John had before him ; and 
what he sought to do was to put the one 
in the place of the other, — to make the 

3° Jn. iii. 17. 
31 Matt. iv. 1 7 



The Kingdom of Heaven 41 

lost world into a saved world, to replace 
the kingdom of the " Prince of the 
Power of the Air " 32 by the kingdom of 
God. 

The Kingdom of Heaven 

Jesus came, therefore, preaching the 
near approach 33 of the kingdom of 
heaven. It was no new term to Jewish 
ears. The Old Testament is full of the 
idea that God is King. The ancient gov- 
ernment of Israel before the days of Saul, 
the first human king, had been a govern- 
ment which professed to be nothing but 
the means by which the authority of God 
was exercised. 34 When the ideal should 
be restored, the ancient kingdom of God 
would be set up again, and its king would 
be the Anointed One, the Messiah, 
whom God would "set upon his holy 
hill of Zion." 35 Jesus never professes to 

32 Eph. ii. 2. Comp. 2 Cor. iv. 4. 

33 Matt. iv. 17. 

34 1 Sam. viii. 7. 
3 * Ps. ii. 6 



42 His Own Mission 

improve on the Old Testament ideal of 
this kingdom. He did not share the 
misunderstandings common among the 
people. He was thus led to teach various 
things about the kingdom by way of cor- 
recting them at different points. But 
this kingdom was always the ancient idea 
of the prophets, cleared of the errors of 
later ages. When he proclaimed it, this 
was itself a claim to be the expected 
Messiah, and it was so understood. 36 In 
fact, the only new thing about Jesus' 
preaching of the kingdom was the an- 
nouncement that it was " at hand." 

It will be of advantage, however, to 
trace the idea of the kingdom in Jesus' 
own words, independently of all its con- 
nection with the prophecies and intima- 
tions of the past. 

Its name points out its character and 
object. It is the kingdom " of heaven " 
because its speaks of heaven, would make 
earth a heaven, and brings the divine, the 

3 6 Acts i. 6. 



The Kingdom of Heaven 43 

heavenly forces down into this world to 
save it. It would produce such a state 
of things that the will of God may be 
" done in earth as it is in heaven." 37 
Again, it is the kingdom "of God" 38 
because he creates it by the sending of 
his Son. 39 Christ is its king. 40 It has no 
outward pomp and circumstance/ 1 since 
it is not "of this world." 42 Its members 
are distinguished by the possession of a 
certain spirit, which manifests itself in 
forms greatly unlike those assumed by 
the world, humility, meekness, mercy, 
purity, — which do not fit in with the 
order of things in this world very well, and 
lead to " persecution," which, however, is 
a source of blessing ! 43 In this present 

37 Matt. vi. 10. 

38 e. g. in Jn. iii. 3. 

3 9 Ibid, 13, 17. 

40 Matt, xxvii. 11. 

41 Jn. xviii. 37 ; Lk. xvii. 20. 

42 Jn. xviii. 36. 

43 Matt. v. 3-12. Cf. Lk. xviii. 17. 



44 His Own Mission 

age of the world the kingdom is only 
" coming/' for it is here only imperfectly 
realized/ 4 and its king is to depart into 
" another country ; " 45 but he will come 
again, and then the kingdom shall be es- 
tablished in its glory. 46 Then shall be in- 
troduced the perfect reign of love. 

To save the lost world, then, Jesus be- 
gan the work of introducing the king- 
dom of God. He gathered about him- 
self a little group of men to whom he 
taught constantly these principles of the 
kingdom. They were the " disciples/' 
or the "twelve." They received his 
message very slowly and with many mis- 
understandings. They clung to the com- 
mon Jewish idea of an external kingdom 
to the very hour of the ascension. But 
they were, nevertheless, in some measure 
the embodied kingdom. They surren- 
dered themselves wholly to the service 

44 Matt. xiii. 24 ff. 

45 Matt. xxv. 14. 

46 Matt. xxv. 31 ff. 



The Kingdom of Heaven 45 

of God by following his messenger. The 
spirit of divine love, of meekness, of loy- 
alty, and of peace came upon them. 
When they were thus called out of the 
sinful world, the work of saving the world 
was already begun. Some had been 
saved. In this fact was the promise of 
the salvation of "many." And when 
his teaching was fully completed, when 
they had seen him die, rise again, and as- 
cend to the Father, when the facts upon 
which their faith was founded and was 
to be engaged were all before them, and 
the Holy Spirit, the interpreter of truth, 
could now explain to them the meaning 
of all, then they began to present in a 
fuller and a more winning manner, by 
actual exemplification, what the King- 
dom was. But meantime there was else- 
where an exemplification. 

Christ Himself the Kingdom 

One aspect of this kingdom is little 
dwelt upon in the New Testament, but 



46 His Own Mission 

it is no less important for that. It is pre- 
sented to us by the simple facts, narrated 
in the gospels but not explained or en- 
larged upon. Jesus did not come to lay 
the first foundation of the kingdom. 
That had been done when Abraham was 
called out of Haran. He came to estab- 
lish it in a larger and more perfect way, 
to introduce those new forces which were 
to give it a greater universality and per- 
fection, and to furnish it in his own per- 
son with a perfect exemplification of 
what it was to be. What was a life dom- 
inated by perfect love, and flowing on in 
perfect communion with God ? The 
life of Jesus answered the question. He 
was fully a member of the kingdom in 
its purest form and under its loftiest ideal. 
He illustrated it. He was for a time the 
whole existing kingdom, both king and sub- 
jects, standard of its life and sole embodi- 
ment of that standard. This was the first 
great department of his works as Saviour. 
He came to save this lost world. He 



The Kingdom of Heaven 47 

did it in the first instance by himself com- 
ing as a man, as one man who was already 
in the kingdom of heaven, already exer- 
cising perfect love and having perfect fel- 
lowship 47 with the Father, as the pattern 
of what all saved men were to be, the 
pledge and earnest of the coming salva- 
tion for all the rest. We do not need to 
resort to mysticism and mere figure to 
say that the world with Jesus in it was a 
saved world. It was saved because sal- 
vation had begun in it ; because in one 
person it was already fully realized; be- 
cause the powers of salvation were already 
at work in it, and men were already be- 
ing drawn into the kingdom of heaven. 
J esus preached the kingdom. More, he 
was the kingdom. 

47 Jn. x. 30. 



CHAPTER V 

The Salvation of Healing 

" The Father hath given me works to accomplish." 
Jn. v. 36. 

rHE prominence of Jesus' works 
of healing in the gospel story 
was forcibly brought to our 
attention in the review of his " deeds " 
which was taken in Chapter III. It is 
the more remarkable that he says so little 
about them as he does himself. In the 
Gospel of John, as we shall see, they are 
often spoken of, but in one accessory 
aspect only, for the most part. In the 
other three gospels, they are generally 
48 



The Salvation of Healing 49 

left to tell their own story. The evan- 
gelists, when speaking in their own per- 
sons, are less reticent. Matthew reckons 
them among the essential labors which 
Jesus came to perform, and applies to 
them a portion of Isaiah's great chapter, 
"Himself took our infirmities and bare 
our diseases." x By implication, at least, 
Jesus made them a distinct part of his 
official work, when at Nazareth he ap- 
plied to himself that other great passage 
from Isaiah, "He hath sent me to pro- 
claim release to the captives, and recover- 
ing of sight to the blind, to set at liberty 
them that are bruised. ' ' 2 This prevailing 
silence he broke, however, in the dis- 
course occasioned by the miracle of 
healing at Bethesda, after having joined 
this work of his with the eternal work of 
God, — " My Father worketh even until 
now, and I work." 3 He appealed to 

1 Matt. viii. 17, 

2 Lk. iv. 18. 

3 Jn. v. 17. 

D 



50 His Own Mission 

this and like works as the great witness 
which he had, greater than that of John 
who was the commissioned witness come 
from God. 4 He does not say, however, 
that the works were given him as a wit- 
ness. Being given, they serve as witness. 
But they were " given him to accomplish" 
evidently because worthy of doing in 
themselves, " given " him, and hence an 
essential element in his mission. 

The Motive of the Miracles 

This is nowhere expressly declared in 
the New Testament ; but it is, after all, 
not difficult to find it. Follow Jesus 
about any day, as he goes up and down 
the land, see him by the sea, in the streets 
of the villages, journeying from town to 
town, coming into the synagogues and 
into the temples, and a sympathetic eye 
has no difficulty in discovering why he 
did what he did. His "beginning of 

< Jn. i. 6. 



The Salvation of Healing 51 

miracles/' done at Cana, was performed 
at a wedding. A needful provision for 
the harmless festivity had failed, and 
friendly kindness led to its supply by him 
who had the power. 5 And then Jesus 
"went about in all Galilee/' 6 " teach- 
ing/' "preaching the good tidings of 
the kingdom/' and "healing" The 
kingdom and healing naturally went to- 
gether. That kingdom was to be the 
place where there should be no sin. How 
could sickness and suffering maintain 
their reign in such a kingdom? And 
how could one who came to banish the 
evil, greater in reality though often 
thought the less, fail to relieve that which 
was the less, when it seemed to men's 
feeble moral apprehension so much 
greater ? He healed the leper who came 
falling down before him, 7 because it was 
natural, infinitely natural to such a one, to 

s Jn. chap. ii. 

6 Matt. iv. 23. 

7 Matt. viii. 2. 



52 His Own Mission 

answer the piteous supplication of a wast- 
ing and dying man. When the multi- 
tude thronged him/ as they continually 
did, what else could he do, in the midst 
of this misery, accumulated and heaped 
up, but heal, if indeed he had compas- 
sionate love for men ? If he had not had 
the /ove, he could not have been the 
Messiah. If he loved, he must heal. 
And, on the other hand, no one but the 
Messiah could manifest the full mastery 
over all misery which he exercised. 9 

We thus get the impression that the 
miracles are the natural outflow of Jesus' 
goodness, and a fulfilling of a part of his 
mission. The impression receives con- 
firmation from every examination of the 
records. Sometimes his compassion is 
expressly referred to as the reason for 
the miracle. Examples of this are the 
story of the first feeding of the multi- 

8 Matt. iv. 24 ; Lk. viii. 42 

9 Matt. xi. 4-6. 



The Salvation of Healing 53 

tude, 10 and of the second also ; " and the 
striking account when, in his going about 
Galilee, " he saw the multitudes " and 
"was moved with compassion for them, 
because they were distressed." IZ But where 
no mention is made of our Lord's com- 
passion, the circumstances of the case 
often make it evident. The details of 
the accounts, emphasizing, as they do, 
the misery and earnestness of the suf- 
ferers, convey the idea. The centurion 
come in behalf of his son " beseeches " 
Jesus. 13 On the Sea of Galilee, it is the 
danger of perishing and the frightened 
cry of the disciples that move him to still 
the waters. 14 The pictures given of the 
"possessed," their misery, senselessness, 
and physical sufferings/ 5 show what the 

10 Matt. xiv. 14 ff. 

11 Matt. xv. 32. 

12 Matt. ix. 36 ff. 

13 Matt. viii. 5. 

14 Matt. viii. 24, 25. 

15 Matt. viii. 29. Comp. Mk. v. 15. 



54 His Own Mission 

things were which the bearing of Jesus, 
his glance, the expression of his face, the 
tones of his voice, impressed on his dis- 
ciples as producing the greatest effect on 
his sensitive heart. The pathetic cries of 
the blind, 16 the fatherly anguish of 
Jairus, 17 the brief vision of the boat dis- 
tressed in the midst of the sea, all tell the 
same story. And when we turn to the 
Gospel of John, we find the same things, 
the same eagerness on the part of the 
nobleman for his son, 18 the same com- 
passion for the "great" hungry multi- 
tude, 19 the same simplicity 20 of address 
and act, the same overflowing human 
sympathy. 21 

It is true, there is another element in 
John. Our text goes on : " The very 

16 Matt. ix. 27. Comp. xx. 31 ff. Mk. x. 47-9. 
'7 " My little daughter," Mk. v. 23. 
18 Jn. iv. 46-49- 
x 9jn. vi. 5. 

20 Jn. v. 5, 6. Comp. vi. 20. 

21 Lazarus' grave, Jn. xi. 33, 35. 



The Salvation of Healing 55 

works that I do bear witness of me that 
the Father hath sent me." 22 Though 
the works were " given to accomplish/' 
they did serve, being given, for a sign. 
This use, made of them throughout the 
gospel, accords with its confessed pur- 
pose, which was "that ye may believe 
that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of 
God." 23 Miracles have a proving value. 
They are generally called " signs." They 
"manifest Christ's glory." They are to 
be believed when words are disbelieved, 
because they are outward, tangible, and 
undeniable. 24 But this all belongs to the 
writer of the Gospel in his character as a 
preacher. What he preaches is true : 
the miracles were signs. But what he 
records in his character as an historian is 
also true, the simplicity with which Jesus 
responded, out of the fulness of his di- 
vine power, to the evident need of 

22 Jn. v. 36. 

J Jn. xx. 31. 

2 *Jn. x. 38. 



56 His Own Mission 

wretched men. Coming to do good, he 
did this first, most evident, and most 
eagerly demanded good, as an essential 
element of his work. 

Relation of Healing to the Rest of Jesus' 
Work 

On such a foundation Jesus built the 
rest of his work. The foundation of a 
building is often of a humble sort, com- 
posed of shapeless stones laid deep in the 
earth, and buried out of sight. It may 
seem a small thing to some that the Son 
of God should heal the sick, give sight 
to the blind, cast out devils. To some it 
may seem to be against "law." But it 
was Mary Magdalene, out of whom 
seven devils had been cast, who stood at 
his cross and came Sunday morning to 
his tomb with her last gifts ; and it was 
the blind man who had been healed, who 
" believed " when Jesus revealed himself 
to him. In that moral approach to men 
by which they learned to " like the friend 



The Salvation of Healing 57 

before they loved the Saviour/' the heal- 
ings formed an essential portion. 

A Permanent Portion ? 

Miracles of healing were for a time 
performed in the church after Jesus had 
ascended. Jesus had commissioned his 
first messengers chosen from his disciples 
to "heal the sick/' 25 and the Acts is 
full of accounts of such healings. In a 
sense that activity of Jesus remains in the 
church to-day. The miracles have 
ceased. \ But Jesus still produces moral 
changes in men by his varied ministry, 
direct and personal, or through his min- 
istering disciples ; and wherever that 
saving moral change is wrought, a new 
impulse of health is given even to the 
body. 26 Drunkards have lost their appe- 
tite for liquor ; every disease arising from 
despondency, or other morbid mental 
condition, has received a powerful check 

2 s Matt. x. 8. 

26 Ro. viii, 11. 



58 His Own Mission 

at conversion ; and thus purity of heart 
has given, on a very large scale, health 
to men. The coming of Jesus to men 
still means the healing of their bodies 
from many an ill. 



CHAPTER VI 

The Salvation of Knowledge 

" I am come a Light into the World, that whoso- 
ever believeth on me may not abide in the darkness." 
Jn. xii. 46. 

rHIS text is often thought to mean 
that Jesus' mission in the world 
was to "enlighten" men, or to 
give them knowledge. Does not the 
very word " light ' ' indicate this at once ? 
Then, when we turn to consider what he 
did, and find him spending his time in 
teaching men, accepting the title of 
teacher, and, indeed, seeming to make 
this his chief business, the impression is 

59 



60 His Own Mission 

strengthened. Knowledge would seem 
to be relied on as the saving element. 
Again, other words are used which in- 
dicate the same thing, as when the 
"darkness/' that is, the sinful world, is 
said not to " apprehend " ' the light, that 
is, not receive it. Light is used for 
"life," 2 and life itself is defined 3 as 
knowledge. And hence some have gone 
so far as to summarize Jesus' whole mis- 
sion under the word Teacher. 

What is "Knowledge?" 

But we must take ground here cau- 
tiously and deliberately. If light is made 
correlative with "knowledge/' and is ex- 
plained by it, it will become necessary to 
know what "knowledge" itself means. 
One can scarcely say that John spoke a 
technical language, for he is no philo- 
sophical scholar, but "speaks right on ' 

1 A. V., " comprehend." 
*Jn. i. 4. 
3 Jn. xvii. 3. 



The Salvation of Knowledge 61 

as thoughts come to him, and in a popu- 
lar way. But it is, nevertheless, true 
that his language is peculiar, that his 
figures and terms have a meaning of their 
own, and that this meaning is to be 
learned from the indications found in his 
own writings, and not by any philosophy, 
ancient or modern. Jesus was a teacher. 
What did he teach ? And what, when 
he speaks of himself as a " Light," did he 
mean ? We begin our answer by consid- 
ering that text which we have selected as 
the most distinct and comprehensive, 
and have therefore placed at the head of 
this chapter. 

" I am come a Light into the World," 
says Jesus, " that whosoever helieveth on 
me may not abide in the darkness." 
Light leads to believing. One may " hear 
and not keep." He then "remains in 
darkness." Light, then, is more than 
teaching ; it is teaching that is received. 
If not received, it does not enlighten any 
man. It is, for him, not even light. 



62 His Own Mission 

This is a somewhat paradoxical result. 
But look at the parallel passages. In Jn. i. 
4 and 5, light is defined as " life." Light 
shined in the darkness ; but what was 
this light ? Life. Now " life " in John 
has a very distinct and clear meaning. It 
is that state of moral union with God, 
produced by " faith/' and expressing it- 
self in conscious fellowship with him, 
which is essentially eternal in its nature, 
and is therefore to last forever. When 
light comes, this comes. When it is " ap- 
prehended " 4 or " received " 5 there comes 
from it a " right," viz., the right to be- 
come, take place and make claim as, the 
children of God, and this because such 
have already been "born" of God. 
The coming of the light is, therefore, 
the working of a change in men which 
is elsewhere ascribed to the Holy Spirit. 6 
The coming of the light is the coming 

< Vs. 5. 

*Vs. 12. 

* Jn. iii. 5. 



The Salvation of Knowledge 63 

of a divine influence, proceeding from 
and exercised by Jesus, which transforms 
the man and makes him a child of God. 
If " teaching," then it is a dynamic teach- 
ing. 

" Light " is thus used in various senses 
in the Gospel of John. It is that which 
brings salvation. Then, by a sudden 
change of application, it is no longer the 
means used to develop "life," but it is 
that life itself. Thus it is the same as 
" salvation," the rescue from sin and its 
corruption. It is the opposite of sin. 
And it is again used as the opposite of 
the condition of the lost. It denotes the 
ethical quality of the new life as holiness, 7 
but is chiefly used to describe it as salva- 
tion from " darkness." 

The Teachings of Jesus 
This dynamic teaching of Jesus ad- 
dresses the intellect in some of its aspects. 
Hence Jesus may be said to have come 
7 Comp. 1 Jn. i. 5 and 7. 



64 His Own Mission 

to give knowledge in the more ordinary 
senses of that word. He taught, for 
example, that " God is a Spirit," 8 — which 
conveys doctrinal knowledge, and states 
a truth not previously reached by any 
religious teacher. Yet even this truth 
was not taught for the mere gratification 
of the intellect. Jesus adds immediately : 
" And they that worship him must wor- 
ship him in spirit." Intellectual aspects 
his teachings have : in fact he may be 
said to have stirred the human intellect 
more than any or all other teachers. 
But intellectual purposes give way to the 
moral. He teaches that he may save. 

With this thought clearly in mind, we 
may note several distinct heads under 
which the teaching of Jesus, as the Light, 
falls. 

1. The doctrine of God. " He that 
beholdeth me, beholdeth him that sent 
me/' 9 he says; and, "He that hath seen 

8 Jn. iv. 24. 

9 Jn. xii. 45. 



The Salvation of Knowledge 65 

me, hath seen the Father/' 10 He re- 
veals God by being himself. Now, this 
revelation of God comes from Jesus only. 
Not only is it a fact that the intellectual 
conception of God which has sprung 
from Jesus' teachings was never known 
before, nor, independently of him, since ; 
but no one ever presented God in human 
form as Jesus did." "No man hath 
seen God at any time ; the only begotten 
Son . . . hath declared him." I2 

We thus see at once the difference be- 
tween the teaching of Jesus and that of 
the prophets, who could only tell men 
about God, but never bring home to the 
vision and the heart the being of God. 
We see, too, the difference between the 
teaching of Jesus and of the church 
theologians (Augustine, Calvin, etc.), 
who have added to the prophet's office 
the task of forming a "doctrine" of 

10 Jn. xiv. 9. 

11 Comp. 2 Cor. iv. 6. 

12 Jn. i. 18. 

E 



66 His Own Mission 

God, viz., a statement in logical form of 
his attributes, and a proof of his existence. 
Jesus brings men into direct contact with 
God, because they gain direct contact 
with himself. They can refuse the con- 
tact and turn away ; but, if they remain, 
they continue to be with God, and thus 
they know him. 

This knowledge, one springing from 
direct communion with God, and this 
only, is the knowledge which the teach- 
ing of Jesus is designed to produce. 
Any other knowledge, such, for example, 
as the theologian draws from Jesus' ut- 
terances, is incidental and auxiliary. The 
" salvation of knowledge " is the salvation 
of personal communion with God. 

2. The doctrine of holiness. " Light " 
sometimes means holiness, as has already 
been explained. The coming of the 
Light was the coming of One " full of 
grace and truth." 13 He became the 
revelation of holiness by being what he 

J 3 Jn. i. 14. 



The Salvation of Knowledge 67 

was, holy and pure. 14 At this point, 
however, his teaching was also largely in 
the realm of what our theologians call 
doctrine. He explains the ancient Law, 
— of murder, of adultery, of oathtaking, 
of vengeance, of love, 15 — and carries its 
prohibitions down from mere outward 
acts to the very thoughts of the heart. 
He enlarges on the duties of men in 
practical life, — on prayer, and fasting, and 
the use of money, and charitable judg- 
ment. 16 He even interprets anew, and 
against the letter of the ancient law, cer- 
tain things, as, for example, the law of 
divorce. 17 All this may be called the 
system of duties, ethics, or a moral phi- 
losophy. But he who heard must do; 
otherwise the end of the teaching was 
not gained. 18 

14 Comp. 1 Jn. iii. 3. 

15 See Matt. v. 21-48. Comp. xxii. 37-40. 

16 Comp. Matt, chaps, vi. and vii. 
J 7 Matt. v. 32. 

18 Matt. vii. 26, 27. 



68 His Own Mission 

3. The doctrine of sin (comp. chap- 
ter IV). 

4. The doctrine that he himself is Sav- 
iour. That doctrine is contained by im- 
plication in many of his words, such as 
those we are here successively consider- 
ing, but not by implication alone. It was 
made repeatedly the object of express 
declaration, as we need not take time here 
to elaborate. 19 It is, therefore, not Jesus' 
doctrine that saves, hut he himself. Salva- 
tion is personal contact with a saving 
person. Were this contact simply that 
personal contact which secures like- 
mindedness in those between whom the 
contact is formed, it would be indistin- 
guishable from the influence of Jesus' 
doctrine ; for this is designed to produce 
a knowledge of the truth and likeminded- 
ness with God. But Jesus constantly 
represents himself as doing something for 

19 e. g., Matt. v. 1 7, " I came," etc. ; ix. 6, " Son 
of Man ; " xi. 28 ; Jn. iii. 14-17, etc., etc., etc. 



The Salvation of Knowledge 69 

our salvation, such as being " lifted up ; " 
and he makes faith a trustful surrender 
to him, — a distinct person, — not merely 
to truth which is abstract and impersonal. 
Here then, we find the anticipation of 
what is to follow in the development of 
Jesus' mission, for the question must 
arise why he, as a person, should have 
this importance. Not alone, evidently, 
because in seeing him man sees God ; 
for in these distant centuries we see him 
no more ; but because he is something, 
and does something not contained in his 
own teachings, or in the teachings of 
others about him. 

The meaning of Jesus in describing 
himself as the " Light/' may possibly be 
better conveyed to this time by the an- 
swer of a question often agitated in past 
periods of the church's life, but daily pre- 
sented in one form or another in this 
period. Is a man saved by his ortho- 
doxy ? Is another man lost because of 
his heterodoxy ? The reply cannot be 



70 His Own Mission 

doubtful. Not "knowledge," but 
knowledge accepted and obeyed, is the 
way of salvation. And, conversely, not 
ignorance, but wilful ignorance, which 
rejects the truth, " cometh not to the 
light lest its works should be reproved/' 2 ° 
— this condemns. Not a given amount of 
knowledge, but " faith," holy attitude of 
heart even if coupled with few advantages 
for intellectual acquaintance with truth, 
saves. 21 Even the attitude towards Jesus 
may be an unconscious one, but it is sal- 
vation if it be the right attitude. 22 We 
have, thus, the same emphasis laid by 
Jesus on the inner ethical relations, on 
the will in distinction from the mere 
intellect, as led Paul to mention the 
heathen as sometimes " doing by nature 
the things of the law/' "being the law 
unto themselves/' 23 for Jesus says: "If 

20 Jn. iii. 20. 

21 Matt. viii. 10-12. 

22 Matt. xxv. 37-40. 

2 3 Ro. ii. 14. 



The Salvation of Knowledge 7 1 

any man willeth to do His will, he shall 
know ; " 24 and again : " If ye abide in my 
word ... ye shall know the truth, 
and the truth shall make you free." 25 

Salvation does not exclude the matter 
of knowledge, and perfected salvation 
involves much knowledge ; but salvation 
is essentially a matter of "light," of the 
reception of what knowledge a man may 
have. 

24 Jn. vii. 17. 

2 s Jn, viii. 31,32. 



CHAPTER VII 

The Salvation of Repentance and a 
New Life 

"I am come to call sinners to repentance." Lk. 
v. 32. 

" I came that they may have life." Jn. x. 10. 

JOHN expresses the object of Jesus' 
coming by the word " light." 
This is the salvation of knowledge. 
It designates the internal, the state of the 
heart and mind, and brings us into 
spheres where saints have spoken of 
" beatific visions." It is among the high 
things of Christian doctrine. And it is 
almost peculiar to the Fourth Gospel. 
72 



Repentance and a New Life 73 

The other gospels are of a simpler and 
more matter-of-fact character. They 
have their simpler ways of expressing 
Jesus' message to men. We are to con- 
sider one of them under the present 
head. There are differences which 
strike us at once, which may seem to 
create a dissonance between John and 
the Three. Possibly a harmony of 
meaning may ultimately be found, and 
if so, the supposition of the unity of New 
Testament teaching, with which we 
started out, will receive an important con- 
firmation. 

John Baptist's Preaching 
John " came preaching, Repent ye, 
for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." l 
The word "repent" which he used, 
meant a "change of mind," a funda- 
mental reversal of purposes and modes of 
thought, but especially a corresponding 
change of life. His preaching justified 

1 Matt. iii. I, 2. 



74 His Own Mission 

his employment of such a word. The 
reports of his sermons which have come 
down to us are very brief, but there is 
enough to indicate their substance. He 
was sharp in his denunciation of sin/ 
and clear in his assertion of the peril at- 
tending it. 3 No racial advantages would 
be enough to secure a man's salvation/ 
but "fruits " worthy of repentance must 
be produced, and these were charity, 
justice, mildness, truth, and contented- 
ness. His preaching was, therefore, 
faithful and radical, demanding that 
thorough change of heart and deeds 
which alone can make saints out of sin- 
ners. 

Jesus 9 Preaching 
Jesus began his ministry with the same 
preaching, expressed in the same words. 5 

2 " Offspring of vipers," Lk. iii. 7. 
3 " Cast into the fire," ib. 9. 
*Ibid. 8. 
s Matt. iv. 17. 



Repentance and a New Life 75 

The meaning also was the same ; and the 
full development of his idea, which grad- 
ually appeared in direct exposition, in 
illustration, by implication in other things, 
leaves one impressed with the radical 
nature and far-reaching effects of the 
" change of mind " which repentance is. 
With both John and his Master, repent- 
ance was " unto remission of sins." 6 
The condition of forgiveness was some- 
times given as " faith " ; 7 but turning 
away from sin (repentance) and turning 
towards God (faith) are the same, undi- 
vided act of the soul. He who does 
the one, must, therefore, do the other. 
It makes no difference under which of 
the two names the act falls ; it is still the 
same. Repentance is said to save from 
"perishing" 8 and to produce "joy in 
heaven." 9 And its expression in the new 

6 Mk. i. 4. 

7 e. g. incidentally, Matt. ix. 2. 

8 Lk. xiii. 3, 5. 

9 Lk. xv. 7, 10. 



76 His Own Mission 

life of the follower of Jesus was the 
theme of most of his discourses. 

Repentance and the resulting new life 
were, thus, salvation, the coming of the 
kingdom within IO the repentant soul, 
or, to change the figure, his entrance into 
that kingdom. Or, to put it in another 
way, the new life may be said to consist 
of three things, a new heart, a new view 
of God and the world, and a new way of 
acting, new good deeds done. 

It was towards the production of such 
a new life that Jesus directed his preach- 
ing, and in this he performed a portion 
of his mission as Saviour. He " saved " 
men when he actually brought them out 
of sin into the fellowship of God, for a 
man who has this fellowship is saved. 
To effect this, he preached a holy life, 
and most of his discourses, such as the 
Sermon on the Mount in particular, were 
occupied in setting forth in the most con- 

10 Lk. vii. 21. 



Repentance and a New Life 77 

crete way what a good life is. In that 
sermon, the holy virtues of the heart are 
placed first, — poverty of spirit, meekness, 
mercy, purity, peacefulness, righteous- 
ness, etc., XI but control of self by absti- 
nence from anger I2 and by purity of both 
act and thought, 13 charity I4 and love, 15 
and all the virtues that are born of simplic- 
ity, piety, trust, and obedience, follow 
and complete the list. The new life was 
to be the old life transformed by an in- 
ward new spirit, lived in the same world, 
but by utterly different and new methods. 
In the Gospel of John we have these 
fundamental thoughts presented after a 
new fashion, but without essential dif- 
ference. We are here taught that a man 
must be " born anew " l6 to enter the king- 

11 Matt. v. 3-12. 

12 Ibid. vs. 22. 
■3 Vs. 28. 

14 Vs. 40. 

15 Vs. 44, extending even to one's enemies. 

16 Jn. iii. 2. 



78 His Own Mission 

dom of God, and this by the "Spirit." 1? 
Thus repentance appears for the first 
time as a divinely wrought change in a 
man, as radical as is the entrance on his 
original life by birth. It may seem that 
all this is utterly unlike that active 
change, the exertion of a man's powers 
in forming a new purpose and beginning 
a new life, of which the other gospels 
are full. But the passive change of 
"birth" is nothing if it does not event- 
ually lead to " believing," l8 and believing 
is an act of the soul as truly as repentance, 
in fact is the same act, as has already been 
shown. It is the act by which a man 
"passes out of death into life." 19 And 
this "life" is "eternal life," or, heaven 
already begun on earth. 20 As a life de- 
pending, as all life does, on due nourish- 

J 7j n . i. 13; iii. 5. 
18 Jn. iii. 15. 
'9 Jn. v. 24. 
20 See chap. VI. 



Repentance and a New Life 79 

ment, its food is the "bread of life" 21 
which Jesus comes to give, and which 
is himself. 

The " new birth " is the work of God 
through his Spirit. It is mysterious 22 
but not altogether inexplicable in its na- 
ture. The Spirit is to "convince" the 
world of sin/ 3 and conviction depends on 
the use of means, of reasons which shall 
carry conviction. Hence, in this gospel 
as in the others, Jesus himself makes use 
of means, and thus fulfills this part of his 
mission. He preaches everywhere, by 
the well, as well as in the temple. One 
of his methods was to recognize the holy 
forces already moving men to repentance 
and having their existence in the society 
about him. Neither John nor he came 
to a people altogether without means of 
grace, for they came to the Jews, who 
were God's chosen people and had " the 

21 Jn. chap. vi. 

22 Jn. iii. 8. 

23 Jn. xvi. 8, 9. 



80 His Own Mission 

adoption, and the glory, and the cove- 
nants, and the giving of the law, and the 
service of God, and the promises," and 
the " fathers." 24 Hence a certain sort of 
preaching was never thought necessary 
by either. They never laboriously 
proved the truth, as something altogether 
new. They built on truth already known 
and acknowledged. When Jesus saw 
the " faith" of the men who brought 
the paralytic to him and of the paralytic 
himself, he recognized it and gave at once 
the greatest of all divine gifts, forgive- 
ness, to the waiting soul ; and then — then 
only — healing to the suffering body. 25 

Another means employed was the 
preaching of sin, its nature and its results. 
Here again he connected with the Old 
Testament, for the penalty of sin is 
" death " 26 or " darkness," 27 and is heaped 

24 Ro. ix. 4, 5. 

2 5 Matt. ix. 2 ff. 

26 Ezek. xviii. 4. Comp. Matt. xxi. 41. 

27 Matt. xxii. 13 ; Jn. iii. 19. 



Repentance and a New Life 8 1 

with figures designed to intensify dread 
of it. 

But Jesus does not seek simply to de- 
ter from sin. He attracts to the good, 
and that principally by what he is him- 
self. 28 He reveals God ; and God as re- 
vealed in Jesus is infinitely lovely. 
Holiness, when understood in the light 
of the one holy life, the life of Jesus, 
never fails to attract. Indeed, in the 
day of its temporal revelation it did at- 
tract men, for, as the Jews complained, 
the world went after him. 29 

And, finally, Jesus laid down his life 
for the world, and thus exercised the 
highest attractive power to lead men to 
repentance, as well as proved beyond 
doubt his own unselfish love. 30 This 
was his preaching, and it fulfilled his 
mission to bring men unto salvation, the 
salvation of a new life. 

28 Comp. the discussion in Chapter VI. 

29 Jn. xii. 19. 

3°Jn x. 15; xv. 13, 14. 
F 



82 His Own Mission 

But did Jesus teach that a man is 
saved because he does good deeds ? Can 
a man begin a virtuous life, and expect, 
in accordance with the teachings of 
Jesus, to be saved — forgiven for the 
past, blessed in the present with God's 
favor, and received for all the future be- 
yond this life into heaven — simply on the 
basis of what he is and does, regardless 
of any grace of God bringing him to re- 
pentance, and of any ground, laid by 
sacrifice or otherwise, for forgiveness? 
So some have thought, and have pointed 
to the fact that in all the first three gos- 
pels the condition of forgiveness is simply 
repentance. It has even been said, re- 
gardless of that word " faith," so common 
in these gospels, that Jesus never pre- 
sents himself there as an object of reliance. 
It is said that God is always presented as 
ready to receive the repentant sinner. 
The parable of the prodigal son is the 
perfect illustration of the way of salva- 
tion. Nothing is said of any condition 



Repentance and a New Life 83 

on God's part which must be met before 
there can be forgiveness. This is be- 
lieved to be a proof that there is no 
obstacle to forgiveness needing to be put 
aside by the offering of himself by Jesus. 
Over against John Baptist's theology 31 
and the propitiatory theology of Paul, 
they set this as the " theology of Jesus ? " 
Are they right ? The question brings us 
immediately to the following division of 
Christ's work. 
31 See Chapter II. 



CHAPTER VIII 

The Salvation of Redemption and 
Forgiveness 

" The Son of Man came to minister, and to give 
his life a ransom for many." Matt. xx. 28. 

¥ "jT/^E have now arrived at the most 
pif important department of our 
subject. The space which is 
given to the passion of Jesus in the gos- 
pels, nearly one fifth of their entire vol- 
ume, would be enough to indicate it; 
and the prominence in the New Testa- 
ment, as well as in the later usage of the 
church, of the " cross of Christ " repeats 
the indication. Among the favorite 
84 



Redemption and Forgiveness 85 

names of the Master in the church has 
ever stood foremost that of " Redeemer." 
The text placed at the head of this 
chapter stands quite isolated from its con- 
text. The mother of James and John 
has been asking for them that they may 
occupy the chief places of honor in 
Christ's kingdom. Jesus is explaining 
in reply that true greatness consists not 
in empty honors but in service. Even 
the Son of Man, the King, came to serve. 
Then he adds, not as a mere additional 
particular, though the thought takes that 
grammatical form, but as an explanation 
of the meaning of his service by the men- 
tion of its chief element, " And to give 
his life a ransom for many." His service 
consisted preeminently in giving his life 
a ransom. 1 The statement is positive 
and comprehensive ; but what is meant 
by the peculiar phrase employed, " give 
a ransom," is indicated by no explanatory 

1 Comp. Jn. iii. 14-16 ; x. 18. 



86 His Own Mission 

remark whatever. Like so many of 
Jesus' sayings, it is left to the future to 
interpret. Except as the word " ran- 
som " itself might serve to convey a def- 
inite idea to the hearers to whom it was 
addressed, the utterance must have re- 
mained quite enigmatical. 

We are left, then, to this source, to 
the meaning of the word in the language 
and amid the customs of Israel, and to 
what further light can be gained from 
the New Testament at large, for its inter- 
pretation. 

Old Testament Use 

The Greek word here rendered " ran- 
som " 2 and its etymological equivalents, 
are employed in the Greek translation of 
the Old Testament in the sense of the 
price paid for the release of a prisoner. 
Used in the plural, it is employed to des- 
ignate the ransom of a female slave, 3 of 

2 Xvrpov. 

3 Lev. xix. 20. 



Redemption and Forgiveness 87 

the first born, 4 of one's own life forfeited 
before the law, 5 of one's self from slavery, 6 
and of a whole people from captivity. 7 
It has been employed in these cases for 
a variety of Hebrew words. 8 But in one 
of the passages 9 it is employed also to 
translate another word that has a peculiar 
meaning, the word " covering." IO The 
same Hebrew is found in Ex. xxx. 12, 
Num. xxxv. 31, 32, Prov. vi. 35. Now, 
" to cover " is the word used in the ritual 
of Leviticus of the atoning efficacy of 
the sacrifices. 11 Sin is " covered over" 
by legal rites ordained by God, or God 
himself may cover over sin, i. e., view the 



4 Num. xviii. 15. 

5 Ex. xxi. 30. 

6 Lev. xxv. 51, 53. 

7 Is. xlv. 13. 

8 jthb, ma, Tro, ntea. 

9 Ex. xxi. 30. 

11 Comp. particularly Lev. xvi. 6, 10, 11, 16, 17. 



88 His Own Mission 

sinner favorably. 12 It lay very near the 
Hebrew usage, therefore, to employ 
"covering" in the sense of "propitia- 
tion," and hence its translation, "ran- 
som," might have taken that meaning. 
In this sense our text would have to be 
translated, " give his life a propitiation for 
many." But in the Old Testament 
neither the Hebrew word nor its Greek 
equivalent in the translation known as 
the "Septuagint" is ever used in this 
sense. It is the payment of money that 
always occasions the introduction of the 
word " ransom " there. So far as the in- 
fluence of the Old Testament goes, it is 
therefore against the rendering of the 
term by "propitiation." But in profane 
Greek, — in iEschylus, Sophocles, Euripi- 
des, Plato, and Lucian, — the word and 
its cognates are freely used in the sense 
of "propitiation." I3 

12 Comp. Deut. xxi. 8. 

13 The importance of this point leads me to add 
a translation of the remarks of Cremer, in his Bibl- 



Redemption and Forgiveness 89 

New Testament Use 

We come, then, to the study of the 
New Testament use of the word " ran- 
som " with the result that it may mean 
either " price paid for liberation' 5 or 
"propitiation," with the weight of Old 
Testament usage in favor of the former. 

theol. Worterbuch d. Nt. Gracitat, under the word 
Xvrpov. He says : — 

u The use of Xvrpov in profane Greek in the 
sense of propitiation may be seen in the following 
examples : iEschylus (Choeph. 48) Xvrpov cu/xaros, 
in connection with Xvav, employed of propitiatory 
rites, e. g. cf>6vov cf>6vw Xvav Sophocles (O. R. 100) ; 
Euripides (Or. 510); ^Eschylus, (Choeph. 803 
[79 1 1) ^y cre ? T ^ v TaAai 7re7rpay fJL€vu)v Xvo-ao-O' al/xa 
7r/oo(T<^aTots 8t/cat9, c the bloodguiltiness of the old 
deeds atone with new punishment ' ; Plato (Repub. 
2, 364, E) Awcis Se kolI KaOapfxoi d8i/07/xaTa>v ? of pro- 
pitiation by ritual and in divine service ; Sopho- 
cles (El. 447) XvTiqpia rov <}>6vov, means of propitia- 
tion ; Lucian (Dial. Deor. 4, 2) ei Se €7ravafeis fie, 

VTncrxyovfJLOLL vol koll aiXXov Kpibv rv0rjo~earOai Xvrpa virep 

» « »> 

€fJLOV. 



go His Own Mission 

Which of these two does it mean? 
We decide for the second, and for the 
following reasons : — 

Words are understood according to 
the connection in which they stand. 
The word " ever-lasting/' for example, 
may mean much as it is used of God, or 
very little, as it is used of a sleepless 
night. The connection, the context, 
is largely decisive in determining such a 
question as this. The immediate con- 
text, as already shown, gives us no help 
as to the meaning of " ransom/' Is there 
a wider context, is there anything else in 
the utterances of Jesus, as they have 
come down to us, which bears on the 
question and gives us the means of de- 
ciding ? 

The passage, Matt. xxvi. 28, 15 — "This 
is my blood of the covenant which is 
poured out for many unto remission of 

*s Parallels are Mk. x. 45 ; Lk. xxii. 20 ; 1 Cor. 
xi. 24, 25. 



Redemption and Forgiveness 91 

sins/' — forms such a context. Jesus is 
here speaking of the cup which he gives 
to the disciples in the Last Supper. 
Taken as it here stands, and especially 
under the circumstances in which it is 
uttered, this text is the plainest assertion 
possible that the blood of Christ is a pro- 
pitiation, a covering of sins because a 
sacrifice for them. "Blood" "blood of 
the covenant" "shed unto remission of 
sins, ' ■ — these are the pivotal words, and 
they point immediately back to the seal- 
ing of the covenant by Moses at Sinai. 
A Jew, familiar with the Scriptures, or 
even accustomed to note the ritual of 
sacrifices still practised in that day in the 
Temple, could scarcely understand them 
in any other way. So we should sup- 
pose. But we have more than supposi- 
tion to go on, for we have a whole New 
Testament book to show how one Jew 
actually did understand them, — the writer 
of the Epistle to the Hebrews. In the 
central chapter of his book, the ninth, he 



92 His Own Mission 

has been drawing out the analogy be- 
tween Christ's offering and that of the 
great day of Atonement/ 6 and then has 
recalled at length the sanctification of the 
covenant by Moses ; 1? and he concludes 
thus : " Apart from shedding of blood 
there is no remission [under the Mosaic 
law]. . . . Now hath (Christ) been man- 
ifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of 
himself." 18 Hence we have "boldness 
to enter into the holy place by the blood 
of Jesus." 19 Thus to every hearer 
trained under the system of Israel as it 
existed in the days when Jesus spoke of 
his blood as the " blood of the cove- 
nant/' these words had one meaning and 
but one, the meaning of the Epistle to 
the Hebrews, that the blood of Jesus 
was the propitiation for our sins. 

Now, the inherent and logical relation 

,6 Heb. ix. 11-14. 

17 Verses 18-22. 

18 Verses 22, 26. 
J 9 Heb. x. 19. 



Redemption and Forgiveness 93 

of these ideas, "ransom " and " propitia- 
tion/ ' gives us the meaning of our text, 
"give his life a ransom." If the giving 
is a price paid only, it need not be a pro- 
pitiation. But if it is a propitiation, it 
must be a ransom, since it must set the 
many free. In the plainer passage it is 
manifestly a propitiation. This is its 
central and controlling idea. And hence 
it is a ransom because a propitiation. The 
word " ransom " is used here at any rate 
as equivalent to propitiation ; and, there- 
fore, since it can bear that meaning di- 
rectly (as shown above from the profane 
Greek), we prefer to say it does, and give 
it the meaning of propitiation. 

Critcal Objections 

Attention has been called to the fact 
that the words, " unto remission of sins/' 
are not found in the parallel passages de- 
scribing the institution of the Lord's Sup- 
per. The inference has been drawn that 
they are not a genuine portion of the 



94 His Own Mission 

earliest tradition, but were added by the 
writer of Matthew in the interest of ritua- 
listic ideas. Jesus, it is also said, never 
manifests any interest in the ritualistic 
and institutional elements of religion, and 
so never could have given utterance to 
these additional words. 

The fact that the words in question are 
found in but one of the evangelists counts 
but little against them. If Matthew may 
be said to have added them, it is equally 
easy to say that the others may have omit- 
ted them, for they add nothing essential to 
the idea conveyed by the phrase " blood 
of the covenant," which was always pro- 
pitiatory. It is equally easy to say either, 
and equally useless. The words stand as 
an undisputed portion of the text, and 
can be removed only by the arbitrary 
methods of a subjective criticism, which 
has only such value as its originator feels 
inclined to assign it, and then only for 
himself. The added argument that Jesus 
could not have said it, is equally valueless. 



Redemption and Forgiveness 95 

" Jesus never speaks of institutions and 
ritual/' they say. " But here is a case/' 
it is replied, and other cases are to be 
found when he speaks of the " church " 2 ° 
and of " baptism." 2I " The text is cor- 
rupt in all these cases because it would 
overthrow our proposition," is the re- 
joinder. In other words, the criticism as- 
sumes such a knowledge of Jesus apart from 
the records, that it can dispute the records on 
the basis of that knowledge. But one ounce 
of fact, such as is given by this text, is 
worth a ton of conjecture. If the criti- 
cism is to be allowed any value, it will 
put itself in better condition before itself 
and before the world, if it frankly admits 
that it believes we know nothing indis- 
putably certain about the teaching of 
Jesus. But then serious men will not 
continue to busy themselves with the 
study of so unknown a teacher. 

20 Matt, xvi. 18. 

21 Matt, xxviiu 19. 



96 His Own Mission 

It may be confidently affirmed, and 
will meet with no objection from any 
competent critic of the present day, that 
on the basis of the Old Testament as 
we have it, the writer of the Epistle 
to the Hebrews was right in his under- 
standing of the meaning of Jesus' blood. 
The account of the ratification of the 
covenant of God with Israel is recorded 
in Ex. xxiv. 4-8. Moses is then re- 
ported to have taken blood and sprinkled 
it upon the altar and then upon the peo- 
ple. Why it was put upon the altar is 
clear. It was the blood of " burnt-offer- 
ings " and " peace-offerings " which had 
just been offered. 22 Now, the blood of 
such offerings, though not primarily pro- 
pitiatory, was such secondarily. If a man 
was to rejoice before Jehovah, he needed 
first the forgiveness of his sins, and there- 
fore a propitiatory sacrifice. Hence in 
Leviticus 23 the ritual act of the transfer 

22 Vs. 5. 
23 Lev. i. 4. 



Redemption and Forgiveness 97 

of guilt to the victim by the laying on of 
hands is prescribed in the case of burnt- 
offerings, and it is verbally added that 
the offering is "to make atonement ," 24 
The same is indicated in reference to 
the peace-offerings. 25 There was no 
covenant made except with those who 
by sacrificial atonement had received 
the divine forgiveness, and thus been 
brought into fellowship relations with 
God. This is the fundamental Jewish 
conception of the whole matter. 

The Higher Criticism of the Old Tes- 
tament has been used by some to invali- 
date this argument. It has been said 
that the sacrifices of primitive Israel were 
not propitiatory in their character; that 
the propitiatory character, and the use of 
the word " cover," are late, in fact, post- 
exilic, additions ; and hence, if the blood 
of Jesus is the blood of the covenant, it 

24 "ISD. 

25 Lev. iii. 2, 7, 13. 

G 



98 His Own Mission 

need have no propitiatory character what- 
ever. You must not distort the plain 
meaning of the early book, Exodus, by 
interpretations brought from the far later 
one, Leviticus ! 

Upon the correctness of the conclusion 
as to the original meaning of sacrifices 
among the Israelites and the relative age 
of the various parts of the Old Testa- 
ment, we shall here enter no opinion. 
This is not the place for profound critical 
questions. But as to the conclusion 
drawn from the premises to invalidate 
the text under our present discussion, it 
is utterly erroneous. Whatever may 
have been the true historical course of 
Israel's ritualistic development, it is evi- 
dent that the compilers of our present 
Old Testament and the Jews of our 
Lord's time who read it, interpreted the 
earlier forms by the later, and saw in 
them all one fundamental significance, 
and that was the significance of a pro- 
pitiatory sacrifice. However it had come 



Redemption and Forgiveness 99 

to the goal, this was the goal of the 
Israelitish development. That is the 
impression which the Old Testament, 
taken as one consistent whole, giving one 
designed impression, and not taken as 
the mere materials out of which the 
" true " (and a different) impression is to 
be laboriously constructed, made on its 
readers at the beginning of the Christian 
era, and makes on us to-day. Now, that 
impression constitutes the environment of our 
text 26 in accordance with which it must 
be understood. Speaking to Jews hav- 
ing such an understanding of the cove- 
nant, and its blood of propitiation and 
sealing, the evangelist Matthew must have 
expected his text, xxvi. 28, to be under- 
stood in that sense. In fact, he must 
have understood it so himself. What he 
understood by it and what others under- 
stood by it, is to be taken as its meaning, 
intended by Jesus. Any other interpre- 
tation is impossible and incapable of being 
26 Comp. chapter I. 

LefC. 



ioo His Own Mission 

sustained, because it makes Jesus talk a 
language he knew would and must be 
misunderstood. 

The argument from the environment 
of our text is not yet done. That environ- 
ment is not simply the Old Testament. 
It is also, as already explained, the por- 
tions of the New Testament in existence 
when the gospel appeared/ 7 particularly 
the Epistles of Paul. Now, no one doubts 
that Paul held the death of Christ to be 
a propitiatory sacrifice. He calls Jesus a 
" propitiation " 28 and a " sin-offering," 2g 
and a " curse." 3 ° These expressions are 
plain enough ; but they are most indubi- 
tably confirmed by what one of his school, 
the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, 
says at so great length when he makes 
Christ priest and victim, by whose blood, 

2 7See chapter I. 

28 Ro. iii. 25. 

29 Ro, viii. 3, though possibly doubtful ; not doubt- 
ful in 2 Cor. v. 21. 

3° Gal. iii. 13. 



Redemption and Forgiveness 101 

as the antitype of the sacrifice of the great 
day of Atonement, we obtain the remis- 
sion of our sins. Peter but took up the 
one voice of the rest of the New Testa- 
ment when he appropriated the words of 
Isaiah and wrote of Christ's bearing " our 
sins in his body on the tree .... by 
whose stripes ye were healed." 3I 

One more passage only remains to be 
cited, as throwing light on the meaning 
both of Matt. xx. 28 and of Matt. xxvi. 28, 
but it is a most important and significant 
passage. In our Lord's last hours with 
his disciples, just before he began that 
great final discourse, " let not your heart 
be troubled," he said, as related by 
Luke : 32 " For I say unto you that this 
which is written must be fulfilled in me, 
And he was reckoned with the trangress- 
ors : for that which concerneth me hath 
fulfillment. ' ' This is a q uotation by J esus 

31 I Pet. ii. 24. 

32 Lk. xxii. 37. 



io2 His Own Mission 

himself from the fifty-third chapter of 
Isaiah, identifying himself with the " Serv- 
ant of Jehovah " there described, and 
his own work with that Servant's work. 
In Isaiah the servant is " reckoned with 
the transgressors " because he is treated 
as a transgressor, for " Jehovah laid on 
him the iniquity of us all/ 5 and " he bore 
the sin of many." Jesus, who knew the 
meaning of the Old Testament, must have 
had all this in mind as he identified him- 
self with Isaiah's " Servant ; " and he has 
thus himself again declared plainly that his 
work was that of bearing our sins, or of 
being a propitiatory sacrifice. 

Thus at the end of Jesus' life, and by 
himself, we find the same identification 
of Jesus with the sacrificial lamb of God 
as John made at the beginning. This is 
in the "synoptic" Luke. If John Bap- 
tist, or the writer of the Fourth Gospel, 
puts the fifty-third of Isaiah, as a kind of 
motto, over the beginning of Christ's 
life, Jesus himself writes it over the 



Redemption and Forgiveness 103 

close, as a summary and epitaph. It 
stamps conclusively the interpretation of 
the other passages at which we have ar- 
rived without its help, as correct. Its 
final authority can only be removed by 
the same arbitrary and subjective critical 
processes which must be employed with 
Matt. xxvi. 28. We have seen how in- 
conclusive they are. They are the more 
inconclusive because there can be no 
doubt that Jesus claimed to be the prom- 
ised Messiah of the Old Testament. 
The "Messiah" and the "Servant of 
Jehovah " were one and the same. 
Every time he claimed to be Messiah 
he taught the propitiatory character of his 
death. A "Messiah" could never be a 
mere teacher, because Isaiah fifty-three 
could never be dissociated from the com- 
plete Old Testament picture of him, 
however the Jews might ignore it. 

Thus we close our view of the first 
three gospels. Upon the basis of all this 
discussion, its several lines of argument 



104 His Own Mission 

leading to the same result, we conclude 
that the word " ransom " in Matt. xx. 28 
is to be understood of a propitiatory sac- 
rifice which, because it was propitiatory, 
redeemed the many from death, the pen- 
alty of the law. 

Did not Jesus omit the Doctrine of Atone- 
ment ? 

The studies which we have been mak- 
ing in the first three gospels to this point 
have been largely verbal studies, matters 
of the interpretation of words. We 
must return now briefly to the objection 
raised at the close of the last chapter in 
the interest of a deeper view of Jesus' 
mission. A certain impatience with 
verbal arguments is sometimes mani- 
fested. Let us not quibble with words, 
it is said, let us rise to a larger view of 
the great methods and the profound 
meaning of Jesus. When he forgives, 
he does it freely. He never insists upon 
any atonement or upon any other condi- 



Redemption and Forgiveness 105 

tion. He simply calls to repentance. 
His doctrine is, " Repent and you shall 
be forgiven." The Publican who cried, 
" God be merciful to me a sinner/' and 
the Prodigal Son who exclaimed, " Father 
I have sinned/' and whose father did not 
permit him even to close his petition, but 
called for the best robe and the ring, — 
these are the examples of Jesus' teaching 
which show he was far above the petty 
doctrine of an atonement. So, in sub- 
stance, it is often said. 

But a "large" treatment of a subject 
can never be successful if it neglects the 
first elements of interpretation. One of 
these is that a speaker is not compelled 
to say everything pertaining to a subject 
every time he touches it. Is the doctrine 
of forgiveness upon condition of repent- 
ance true ? Then Jesus may teach it, 
without necessarily discussing its ground. 
Another principle of interpretation is that 
a parable can be held to teach only the 
truth designed to be taught, and that it 



106 His Own Mission 

cannot be quoted in favor of all the pos- 
sible inferences from its mere language 
aside from its main intent. Thus, from 
the parable of the vineyard you cannot 
infer that the divinely intended business 
of the Jews was exclusively viticulture ! 
or from the parable of the mustard seed 
(a pungent tasting seedlet) that repentance 
is always a bitter thing ! 

Now, as to the parable of the Prodigal 
Son, one thing is intended by Jesus, and 
but one, viz., to enforce the position that 
the gospel was provided for "sinners," 
and that God had a new joy over a re- 
pentant soul simply because he had been 
lost. The joy of the father is the point : 
all the rest is accessory. Of course, cer- 
tain other doctrines could not fail to be 
taught, for they contribute to the main 
effect of the story, or are essential to it. 
Thus the fact and misery of sin ; the 
motives to repentance ; its nature and 
thorough-going character ; find illustra- 
tion in the parable : but the readiness of 



Redemption and Forgiveness 107 

the father to receive the sinner, and his 
equal position in the favor and love of 
the father with any who may not have 
gone so grievously astray, is the main 
thing, and nothing not essential to this 
can be demanded of the teacher as a 
necessary portion of his story. Until 
modern preachers, who believe in the 
atonement, can be held to mention it 
every time they speak of forgiveness 
(and what rhetorician could be as foolish 
as this?), Jesus cannot be said to have 
been ignorant of the doctrine or to have 
rejected it because he did not insert it in 
such instances as this parable. 

If anything more were needed to 
complete the refutation of the "larger " 
argument, it would be the distinct addi- 
tion, by this very Luke, of the reference 
to the propitiatory work of Christ in 
xxii. 37 already discussed. Not a synop- 
tic but has some reference to this work, 
though the scope of his book prevents 
him from enlarging upon it ! 



108 His Own Mission 

The Gospel of John 

The detailed and careful examination 
of the texts made above has been neces- 
sary because the teaching of Jesus him- 
self as to his death has been thought by 
many in recent days to be confined to 
the first three gospels, and to omit en- 
tirely the element of sacrifice as a por- 
tion, much more as the chief portion, of 
its significance. It has been shown, we 
trust, that the first three gospels do not 
make this omission. We now turn to 
the Fourth Gospel. It has been gen- 
erally acknowledged that this gospel 
gives the central place in Christ's work 
to his death as a propitiatory sacrifice. 
We may despatch this portion of our 
work, therefore, more briefly; but we 
need to know the grounds which have 
led to this general admission. 

The teachings of Jesus himself in the 
Gospel of John are not to be sharply 
separated from the teachings of the evan- 



Redemption and Forgiveness 109 

gelist, as has already been explained. 33 
Therefore the significant utterance of 
John the Baptist, recorded in John i. 29, 
that Jesus was " the Lamb of God that 
taketh away the sin of the world," 34 
belongs here. Standing, as it does, at 
the very opening of this gospel, it is as if 
the Apostle John had put it as the text 
of all his subsequent teaching as to Jesus' 
work, as the key by which his later ex- 
pressions were to be understood. Cer- 
tain it is that, if the idea of propitiation 
here presented be taken as a guide, all 
the subsequent teaching becomes imme- 
diately clear. We shall, however, relin- 
quish the advantage given by this use of 
the text, for the purpose of gaining the 
independent contribution of other texts 
to our theme. 

The first discourse of Jesus recorded 
in this gospel opens the discussion. Be- 

33 See chapter I, 

34 See chapter II. 



1 10 His Own Mission 

ginning with the necessity of regenera- 
tion, 35 and affirming the competence of 
the teacher, 36 it proceeds to explain the 
way of entrance to the "kingdom of 
God " by " believing," and sets forth the 
object of faith, the crucified Son of Man. 37 
The verses fourteen, fifteen and sixteen, 
give an epitome of the entire gospel. 
God " gave " his Son. This word is ex- 
plained by x. 18, when " to lay down his 
life " is said to be the " commandment " 
of the Father. 38 The " giving " thus in- 
volves death, and this is the death of " lift- 
ing up/' 39 or death upon the cross ; and 
this death constitutes Jesus as an object 
of faith, so that men are to believe in him, 40 
that is, entrust themselves to him in con- 

35 Jn. iii. 3. 

36 Verses 11-13. 

3 7 Verses 14, 15. 

3 8 Comp. Phil. ii. 8, " obedient unto death." 

39 See vs. 14, and comp. xii. 32, 33. 

40 Vs. 15, or if this be otherwise construed, 
then 16. 



Redemption and Forgiveness 1 1 1 

sequence of what he has become by be- 
ing lifted up. No closer explanation of 
the meaning is given except by the ref- 
erence to the serpent, and the point of 
analogy seems to be merely the element 
of trust contained in both. 41 Twice later 
in the gospel the same figure is employed 
to describe Jesus' death. 42 In connection 
with the first, the voluntary character of 
the death is emphasized by the phrase 
"I go away/' 43 of which the phrase 
" lifted up the Son of Man " is but the 
argumentative parallel. He went (vol- 
untarily) away, but it was by means of 
betrayal and crucifixion. In the second, 
the context, which is the remarkable pas- 
sage where the coming of the Greeks 
suggests the world wide character of his 
mission, brings forward the thought that 
only when he was lifted up, could his 
universal work be done. Then, and then 

41 See Num. xxi. 9. 

42 Jn. viii. 28, and xii. 32, 34. 

43 Verse 21. 



1 1 2 His Own Mission 

only, could he " draw all men unto him- 
self/ ' Like iii. 16, it thus teaches that 
his death constituted him the Saviour. 

The voluntary character of Jesus' 
death, and its central position in his work, 
are made the theme of certain passages 
in the discourse of the Good Shepherd. 44 
He comes that men may have life, and 
they obtain it by the surrender of his own 
life, which no man takes from him, but 
which he lays down of himself, 45 because 
of the Father's commandment, and that 
he may take it again. 

This might seem, possibly, to make 
him nothing but a hero, like the soldier 
who takes his life in his hand for his 
country, or, to use Jesus' own figure, like 
the shepherd who loses his life for his 
sheep. This impression cannot, how- 
ever, stand before a closer consideration 
of the passage, for the central thought is 
that of voluntary surrender. The human 

44 Jn. x. io, ii, 17, 18. 

4S Vs. 18. Comp. xv, 13. 



Redemption and Forgiveness 1 13 

shepherd yields to a violence which he 
cannot overcome, and has in no sense 
" power to lay his life down, and power 
to take it again." Not so Jesus. 

But if such an idea were obtainable 
from the discourse of the Good Shep- 
herd, the discourse of the Bread of Life 46 
would contradict it. Beginning with the 
figure of bread derived from the illustra- 
tion of the manna given to Israel in the 
desert, 47 Jesus calls himself the true bread. 
He must be eaten, if a man is to have eter- 
nal life/ 8 that is, he is himself the object 
of faith, and a man must trust on what 
he is and what he does, if he is to be saved. 
It is the old doctrine of iii. 14-16. To 
make this perfectly plain, the figure of 
bread is soon abandoned, and the 
" bread " is declared to be his " flesh ; " 
and, if this is not enough, " flesh " is ex- 

46 Jn. chap. vi. 

47 Vs. 31-33. 

48 VS. 53. 

H 



1 14 His Own Mission 

panded to "flesh and blood/' 49 This 
language is itself sacrificial, and plain 
enough to us at this day. But to a Jew, 
accustomed to the sacrificial ritual, and 
acquainted with the use of the flesh of 
the victim as food, 50 the allusion was even 
plainer. It might yet cause stumbling to 
the enemies of Jesus, and they might ask, 
" How can this man give us his flesh to 
eat?" 51 But those who still listened 
heard a hint of resurrection after death 52 
confirming the meaning of the figure of 
flesh and blood as referring to a violent 
death. 

What other objective and unprejudiced 
interpretation these passages would ad- 
mit than that of a sacrificial and propi- 
tiatory death, I do not know. But if 
there were any doubt, the setting of this 
element of Jesus' teaching in the gospels 

49 Vs. 53, 56. 

s° See Lev. vii. 15, 1 Sam. i. 4. 

s 1 Vs. 52. 

s 2 Vs. 62. 



Redemption and Forgiveness 1 1 5 

at large would make it perfectly evident. 
When we remember that his death was 
accompanied by the effusion of his 
blood, 53 when we recall the institution of 
the Lord's Supper and its two elements, 
bread and wine for body and blood, and 
remember that the death was prophesied 
at the beginning of the ministry by Jesus, 
the " offering of the body of Jesus " for 
the "putting away of the sin" of the 
world 54 becomes the one natural mean- 
ing of the text. This was certainly the 
meaning which John gained from it 
himself, for in his first Epistle he lays re- 
peated emphasis on the hlood^ of Christ, 
which "cleanseth us from sin;'" and 
bases the fact of Christ's eternal inter- 
cession and advocacy for us on the fact 
that "he is the propitiation for our 
sins." 5<s It is but a repetition of the pas- 

53 Jn. xix. 34. 

54 Heb. x. 10 ; ix. 26. 

55 See i. 7 ; v. 6. 
s 6 1 Jn. ii. 2. 



1 1 6 His Own Mission 

sage in the gospel, iii. 16, when we read 
in the epistle, iv. 10, God " loved us, 
and sent his Son to be the propitiation 
for our sins." 

It is, then, plain from these texts, in 
themselves and in their setting, that 
Jesus taught, according to John's testi- 
mony, the propitiatory character of his 
death. When, now, employing the 
motto-text of the Gospel as our guide, 
we view Jesus from the beginning as the 
sacrificial " Lamb of God," every possi- 
ble hesitation must be swept away. In 
fact, it has been swept away, for the 
method which modern objectors to a 
propitiatory sacrifice have with one con- 
sent adopted to invalidate the biblical 
character of the doctrine, is the critical 
method, which subjects the first three 
gospels to an arbitrary and subjective 
analysis, and denies altogether the au- 
thenticity and genuineness of the fourth. 
In the light of that motto-text, it is as 
this " Lamb " that Jesus is " lifted up," 



Redemption and Forgiveness 1 1 7 

and laid on the cross as upon an altar ; as 
" Lamb " he sheds his blood ; 57 as a sacri- 
fice he gives his life ; as a sacrifice his 
flesh and blood become food for the soul 
as the flesh of the ancient sacrifices was 
the food of the sacrificers. 

Result 
The four gospels, then, perfectly agree 
in presenting the teaching of Jesus as 
this, that his death was a propitiatory 
sacrifice. Jesus made, it is true, but brief 
allusions to this great fact, for the time 
had not yet come to make it perfectly 
clear. Even to the disciples the thought 
of a suffering Messiah would have been 
a stumbling block, 58 as it always remained 
to the Jews. But in view of the fact, 
the teaching becomes clearer to us than 
it could have been to those who heard it ; 
and they j when they had seen the teach- 
ing illuminated by the events of Calvary 
and Olivet, had no further hesitation. 

57 Comp. 1 Pet. i. 19, 20. 

58 Comp. Jn. vi. 66. 



CHAPTER IX 

Salvation at the Last yudgment 

" For judgment came I into this world." Jn. ix. 39. 

rHE idea of Jesus as judge moves 
amid verbal paradoxes in the gos- 
pels. In Jn. iii. 17, we read that 
" God sent not his son into the world to 
judge the world/' Here we read that 
he "came for judgment." In viii. 15, "I 
judge no man ; " in v. 22 and 27, "the 
Father hath given all judgment unto 
the Son," " and he gave him authority to 
execute judgment because he is the Son 
of man." 
118 



Salvation at the Last Judgment 1 1 9 

Yet there is no essential difficulty, or 
real contradiction in the gospel. Jesus 
does not come to judge the world but to 
save it. "Judge" here means condemn, 
pronounce unfavorable judgment upon. 
This has been already done for the sinful 
world, which lies, in the omniscience of 
God, in known guilt and recognized 
condemnation. 1 In the text prefixed to 
this chapter, the meaning is still another. 
Jesus comes to present truth, as the 
light, 2 and the actual result of this will 
be judgment, the making manifest of 
the fact that those who in their own 
opinion see, are really blind ; and others 
who know they have no spiritual vision, 
gain such a vision. But he shall come 
finally to execute judgment in the full 
and proper sense of that word, 3 when 
he raises the dead, and they come forth, 

1 This presentation agrees with the use of the 
word " lost." See chapter IV. 

2 Vs. 5. 

3 Jn. v. 22 ff, 



120 His Own Mission 

some to life, others to a judgment that is 
a condemnation. 

The Gospel of John, with its constant 
emphasis on the internal, ethical mean- 
ing of the message of Jesus, preferably 
puts the decisive point in the destiny of 
every man at the hour of believing or 
rejecting the good news. Then he 
" passes into life " 4 and has no judgment 
hour before him, or he remains in the 
state of the judged (and condemned), 
and "the wrath of God abideth on 
him." 5 Were it not for the indications 
of v. 22 ff (" the Father hath given all 
judgment unto the Son"), and xii. 48 
(" the word that I spake shall judge him 
in the last day "), it might seem that 
John did not teach the doctrine of a 
general judgment. But he is put by 
these passages in full agreement with the 
first three gospels, which everywhere 

* Jn. v. 24. 
sjn. iii. 18, 36. 



Salvation at the Last Judgment 1 2 1 

teach a final judgment, of which Jesus 
Christ is the Judge. 6 

Now, at this judgment Jesus appears 
for the last time and in the fullest sense 
as Saviour. Here he pronounces the 
sentence, separates between the evil and 
the good, 7 and receives his true fol- 
lowers, even when they would scarcely 
arrogate to themselves the title, 8 into 
heaven. Thus he completes the work 
which he began by announcing that the 
kingdom of heaven was near, by receiv- 
ing his followers into it and giving them 
" eternal life." 

6 Matt. xvi. 27 ; xxv. 31 ff. Mk. viii. 38 ; ix. 
I ; xiii. 26, 27. Lk. xxi. 27, 36. 

7 Matt. xiii. 30. Mk. iv. 29. 

8 Matt. xxv. 37. 



CHAPTER X 

Summary 

TTf^ are now prepared, in the 
JrlS briefest manner possible, to re- 
view our course and gather to- 
gether in a single expression the result 
of our studies. 

The mission of our Lord in the world 
is expressed in one word. He is our 
Saviour. He came into this world be- 
cause it was lying in sin and lost ; and he 
came to save it. That expresses the 
whole. Whatever he should find neces- 
sary to saving the world he would do. 
122 



Summary 1 23 

And the ideal which he set before him- 
self as the goal to be attained was nothing 
less than a saved world, a world where 
the great governing law of heaven should 
prevail, a world that was the kingdom of 
heaven. 

In seeking this end he met the various 
problems as they arose, and solved them 
one by one. He found the world miser- 
able, sick with physical disease, plagued 
with death ; and he healed it, curing the 
sick, raising the dead, casting out demons. 
This was his work at the lowest point of 
the distress of the world, — its physical dis- 
tress. So far forth his healings saved it, 
put into it something of the triumph over 
suffering which perfect holiness will 
finally make perfect. 

But beneath suffering lay sin, its cause. 
He came to dispel the darkness of sin, 
because it was ignorance, wilful ignorance 
of truth, and painful ignorance of God, 
what he is and what his friendship is. 
As Light, Jesus sought to bring the 



124 His Own Mission 

knowledge of God to men in such a way 
as should lead them to love him and sur- 
render themselves to him, and thus, for 
the first time, know him. The gift of 
this knowledge was the gift of eternal 
life. 

But men do not all move on such a 
plane that they long, at first, for the 
knowledge of God. They know, how- 
ever, that they commit sins, and they may 
be led to see this and to amend their 
lives. Thus they will in fact draw near 
God, and thus the knowledge of per- 
sonal communion with him will begin. 
Jesus, accordingly, sought often to gain 
men through repentance and the begin- 
ning of a new life ; and to this effort he 
brought the most painstaking and un- 
wearied effort. He preached the evil of 
sin and the beauty of holiness, and began 
the actual winning of the world to the 
new life of the kingdom of God. He 
saved men by winning them to a holy 
life. 



Summary 1 25 

But there was a further task. All this 
could be done by living : now he had to 
do something which demanded dying. 
God made him the sacrificial Lamb, who 
was to bear the sins of the world, on whom 
was to be laid our iniquities, and by whose 
stripes we were to be healed. Why this 
was so, the four gospels give no hint. 
But God gave him the commandment 
that he should lay down his life ; and he 
laid it down of himself. He gave his 
flesh and blood to the world for its food. 
He thereby made himself the object of 
faith. Man needed something more 
than repentance : he needed forgiveness. 
He could repent himself : he could not 
"bear his own sins," or provide for his 
forgiveness. He needed a Saviour to 
do this for him, as totally beyond his 
powers. And Jesus made himself this 
needed Saviour, when he ascended the 
cross and bore its solitary burden. When 
he cried, " My God ! My God ! Why 
hast thou forsaken me?" then he was 



126 His Own Mission 

bruised and smitten by Jehovah, and 
when he cried, "It is finished/ ' then 
he had made atonement for sins and 
purchased to himself forever by his 
blood his church, and thus become 
the Saviour. 

And he who saves, shall finally judge — 
a judgment which shall open the king- 
dom of heaven to believers, and shall 
remand those who love darkness rather 
than light to the outer darkness which 
they love — and inexpressibly hate and 
fear. 

In a word then Jesus is Saviour, be- 
cause he is and does everything neces- 
sary to our salvation, provides it for us, 
and leads us unto it. 



THE END. 



INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 

A 
Anger, of God against sin, 35. 
Atonement, 97. 

B 
Birth, the New, 77. 

Blood, of the Covenant, 90 ; of Christ, 115. 
Bread of life, discourse on, 113. 

C 

Compassion for the sinner, 34. 
Covenant, 9 1 . 

D 

Darkness, the correlative of light, 61. 

E 

Environment, of the Gospels, 10 ; of the text, 
Matt. xxvi. 28, 99. 

G 

Germ of the u Kingdom," the disciples, 44 ; 

Jesus, 46. 
God, Jesus' doctrine of, 64. 
Gospels agree in the picture of Jesus, 9. 

127 



128 Index of Subjects 

H 

Healing, the salvation of, 48 ; relation to the rest 
of Jesus' work, 56; permanency, 57. 

I 

Isaiah, fifty-third, quoted in the N. T., 20 ; cited 
by Jesus of himself, 101. 

j 

Jesus is the Jesus of the gospels, 7 ; as a teacher, 
27; as Messiah, 28; as a victim, 29; picture 
of in the gospels, 9. 

John Baptist's view of Christ, 17. 

Judgment of the World, 119. 

K 

Kingdom of Heaven, 40 ; O. T. idea of, 41 ; 

Jesus' teaching as to, 42. 
Knowledge, the salvation of, 59 ; meaning of, 60 ; 

intellectual aspects of, 64. 

L 

Lamb of God, 19, 116. 

Life, 40 ; defined, 62 ; virtues of, 77. 

Light, meaning of, 61, 63 ; i. q. holiness, 63, 66. 

Lost, meaning of, 33, 38 ; lost World, 32. 

M 
Messiah, Jews' view of, 16; Jesus as, 28. 



Index of Subjects 129 

Method of this study, i. 

Miracles, motive of, 50 ; the natural consequence 
of what Jesus was, 52 ; signs, 54, 

N 
New Life, the, 72. 

P 
Preparation for Christ, 16. 
Prince of this World, 37. 

Propitiation, in O. T., and in profane Greek, 
88, 100. 

R 

Ransom, meaning of, 85. 

Repentance, 72 ; John Baptist, 73 ; Jesus, 74 ; 
contrasted with faith, 75 ; a divinely wrought 
change, 77 ; produced by preaching the truth, 

79- 

S 
Salvation, having life, 36 ; the coming of the 
u Kingdom," 46 ; healing, 48 ; of knowledge, 
59 ; light, 63 ; by " orthodoxy," 69 ; of repent- 
ance, 72; fellowship with God, 76 ; redemption 
and forgiveness, 84; at the Judgment, 118. 
Saviour from sin, 22, 68, no, 113, 122, 
Sin calls forth compassion, 34; anger, 35. 

I 



130 Index of Subjects 

Sources of our knowledge of Jesus, the apostles, 5. 
Subject of this work, 3. 

U 

Unity of N. T. in doctrine, 14. 

V 

Virtues of the Christian, 77. 

W 

Words of Jesus, in what sense we have them, 4. 
World, as lost, 32, 36. 



INDEX OF TEXTS. 



Matthew i. 21 


23 


Matthew vii. 1- 


-29 67 


ii. 5 


16 




26, 27 


67 


iii. i 


73 


viii. 


2 


51 


2 


!9>73 




5 


53 


3 


17 




10-12 


70 


ii 


19 




12 


39 


12 


19 




17 


24,49 


iv. 17 40, 


4i» 74 




24 


53 


23 


5i 




25 


53 


24 


52 




29 


53 


v. 3-12 


43^77 


ix. 


2ff 


80 


17 


68 




2 


75 


21-48 


67 




6 


68 


22 


77 




27 


54 


28 


77 




36 ff 


53 


3 2 


67 




36 


34 


40 


77 


X. 


6 


33 


44 


77 




8 


55 


vi. 1-34 


67 




28 


38 


10 


43 


xi. 


4-6 
131 


52 



132 


Index of Texts 




Matthew xi. 


14 


21 


Matthew xxvii. 


46 125 


28 




68 


xxviii.19 


95 


xii. 46 




23 






xiii. 24 




44 


Mark i. 3 


78 


3° 




121 


4 


18,75 


xiv. 14 ff 




53 


iv. 29 


121 


xv. 6 




35 


v. 13 


53 


32 




53 


23 


54 


xvi. 18 




95 


vii. 21 


35 


27 




121 


viii. 38 


121 


xviii. 8 




39 


ix. 1 


121 


xx. 28 3 


1,84, 


IOI, 


43 


39 


] 


[04 




48 


39 


31 ff 




54 


x. 21 


36 


xxi. 41 




80 


45 


90 


xxii. 13 




80 


47-9 


54 


37-40 




67 


xiii. 26 


121 


42 




16 


27 


121 


xxiii. 1—39 




35 






xxv. 14 




44 


Luke i. 17 


18 


3 i ff 


44) 


121 


35 


23 


37 




121 


ii. 19 


23,27 


37-40 




70 


34 


23 


41 




39 


38 


23 


xxvi. 28 90, 101, 


103 


49 


26 


xxvii.11 




43 


iii. 7 


19) 74 



Index of Texts 



133 



Luke iii. 8 


74 


John 


i. ii 


j 


65 


9 


74 




29 




20, 22 


17 


!9 




3 1 




18 


iv. 18 


49 




33 




18 


v. 32 


3 X > 72 




35 




21 


vii. 21 


76 




36 




20, 21 


viii. 42 


52 


ii. 


7, 


8 


5i 


xiii. 3, 5 


75 


iii. 


2 




77 


xv. 4 


34 




3 




43> II0 


7, 10 


75 




5 




62,78 


xvii. 20 


43 




8 




79 


xviii. 17 


43 




11- 


!3 


no 


xix. 10 


3°>32 




H 




22 


xxi. 27 


121 




14, 


15 


no 


36 


121 




14- 


16 


85 


xxii. 20 


90 




14- 


•17 


68 


37 


101 




15 




78 








16 


36, 


110,112, 


John i. 4 


60 






116 


5 


62 




J 7 


40 


»43> II8 


6 


5° 




18 




37, 120 


7 


18 




19 




37>8o 


11 


38 




20 




70 


12 


62 




36 




37, 120 


!3 


78 


iv. 


24 




64 


H 


66 




46- 


9 


54 



134 



Index of Texts 



John v. 5 


,6 




54 


John x. 18 85, 


no, 112 


l 7 






47 


30 


47 


22 






118, 119 


38 


55 


22 


ff 




120 


xi- 33, 35 


54 


24 




39 


, 78, 120 


xii. 19 


81 


27 






118 


3 1 


37 


36 




3« 


3, 48, 55 


32 


no, in 


vi. 1- 


7 1 




79, "3 


33 


no 








114 


34 


17, in 


5 






54 


45 


64 


20 






54 


46 


30 


66 






117 


xiv, 9 


65 


vii. 17 






7i 


3° 


37 


viii. 15 






118 


xv. 13 


81, 112 


21 






in 


14 


81 


28 






in 


xvi. 8, 9 


79 


3 1 , 


32 




7 1 


xvii. 3 


39, 6o 


4i 






38 


xviii. 36, 37 


43 


42 






26 


xix. 30 


126 


44 






38 


34 


"5 


ix. 5 






119 


xx. 31 


55 


39 






31, 118 






x. 10 




3 1 , 


72, 112 


Acts i. 6 


17,42 


11 






33, II2 






15 






81 


Romans ii. 14 


70 


17 






112 


iii. 25 


100 



Index of Texts 



135 



Romans viii. 


3 


100 


1 Peter i. 20 




117 


11 




55 


ii. 24 




101 


ix. 4, 5 




80 


2 Peter iii. 15, 


16 


n 


1 Cor. xi. 24 


1 25 


90 


1 Jn. i. 5 




63 


2 Cor. iv. 4 




4i 


7 


63, 


115 


6 
V, 21 




65 

100 


ii. 2 
iii. 3 

14 




"5 

67 

39 


Galatians ii. ] 


[-21 


x 3 


iv. 10 




116 


11 




14 


v. 6 




"5 


iii. 13 




100 


19 




38 


Ephesians ii. 2 


4 1 


Exodus xxi. 30 
xxiv. 4-8 




87 
96 


Philippians ii. 


8 


no 


Leviticus i. 4 




96 


Colossians iv. 


16 


!3 


iii. 2, 7, 13 
vii. 15 




97 
114 


Hebrews ix. 11-14 


92 


xvi. 6, 10, 1 1 


16, 


17. 


18-22 




92 






87 


26 


92, 


"5 


xix. 20 




86 


10 




"5 


xxv. 51, 53 




87 


x. 19 




92 














Numbers xviii. 


!5 


87 


I Peter i. 19 




117 


xi. 9 




III 



136 



Index of Texts 



Deuteronomy 

1 Samuel i. 4 
viii. 7 


xxi. 


8 


88 

114 
4 1 


Isaiah xlv. 13 
liii. 5, 6 

7 


87 
21 

20 


Psalms ii. 6 






41 


Ezekiel xxxiv. 4 


80 


xxiii. 1 






33 


5 


34 


3 






34 







BIBLIOGRAPHY 

General Works on the Biblical Theology of the New Tes- 
tament : — 

Weiss, Prof. Bernhard, Lehrbuch d. biblischen Theologie d. 
JV. T, §§ 20, 21, 22, 23, 146, 147, 148. — The same, translated 
from the third German edition, Clark's " Library," Bib. Tkeol. 
of the N. T, same sections. [Conservative.] 

Holtzmann, Prof. Heinrich Julius, Lehrbuch der neuiest. 
Theologie, 1897, Vol. I, pp. 234-304, Vol. II, pp. 473-483. 
[Standpoint, the critical.] 

Beyschlag, Prof. Willibald, Neutestamentliche Theologie, 
1 89 1, Vol. I, pp. 126-155, 261-277. — The same, translated, 
Clark's "Library," Vol. I, pp. 130-159, 266-281. [Radical.] 

Bo von, Prof. Jules, Theologie du Nouveau Testament, 1893, 
Vol. I, pp. 4o8ff, 5oiff. [Radical.] 

Stevens, Prof. George B., The Theology of the New Testa- 
ment, 1899, pp. 1 19ft, 224ff. [Conservative.] — Also the mono- 
graph by the same author, on The Teachings of fesus. 

The following special treatises have suggestive chapters : — 

Wendt, Prof. H. H., Die Lehre Jesu, 1890, Vol. II, pp. 477- 
541. The same, translated (Scribners), Vol. II, pp. 184-264. 
[Radical.] 

Grau, Prof. Rudolph F., Das Selbstbewusstsein Jesu, pp. 219ft. 

Seeberg, Prof. Alfred, Der Tod Chrisii in seiner Bedeulung 
fur die Erldsung, 1895. [This book is unique in basing the 
interpretation of the Synoptics on a foregoing discussion of 
the remaining New Testament, beginning with the Epistle to 
the Hebrews.] 

Stalker, Rev. James, The Christology of Jesus, 1899, pp. 17 iff. 
[Conservative.] 

Denney, Prof. James, The Death of Christ, 1902, pp. 11-60. 
[Conservative.] 

Lidgett, John S., The Spiritual Principle of the Atonement, 
1898, pp. 77-88. [Conservative.] 

Walker, W. L., The Crdss and the Kingdom, pp. 85, 196. 

Briggs, Prof. C. A., The Messiah of the Gospels, 1894. 

From recent Reviews the following may be consulted : 

Fairbairn, Principal, A. M., Chrisfs Attitude as to his own 
Death, Expositor, Jan., Feb., 1897. The Cross and Passion, 
Quiver, July, Aug., 1901. 

Pfleiderer, Prof. Otto, Jesus* Foreknowledge of hts Sufferings 
and Death, New World, Sept., 1899. 

Pope, R. M., Recent Studies in the Life and Teachings of 
Jesus, London Quarterly Rev., July, 1900. 

Samtleben, G., Hat Christus schon vo?i seiner Erl'osungsthat 
geredel? Kirchliche Monatsschrift,i896, pp. 712-17. 



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